With my previous company, instead of using taditional PLCs, they used DIN-rail mounted Beckhoff SBCs (single board computer). You could plug in a laptop with ethernet into the SBC, go to your web browser, and type in the IP address of the SBC and a web page which was hosted on the SBC would appear. The SBC was also connected via ethernet to I/O modules. From the SBC-hosted page, you could monitor the I/O, and network status. I believe all the software on the SBC was written by software engineers within the company, so if I were to buy one of these SBCs I would not automatically have that same capability.
After a series of unfortunate events & much frustration today with Allen Bradley's crappy crap, I started to think about these SBCs. I was thinking it would be so damned easy to use a PLC where the programming software is already in the PLC. Just plug in ethernet, type in IP address in the browser, and a Java-based programming page appears. No more special 300$ cable for each and every different model# of PLC. No more compatibility issues. No more fussy sofware, with fussy installation proceduress & windows version conflicts. No more memory-hogging expansive software suites and fussy licensing procedures. No more monthly patches & updates. No more going into configuration to change the backplane layout - I/O modules are plug & play hot-swappable, stackable in any order - need another one, just slap it on the end. No more staking your livelihood on the hopeful survival of a single-point failure laptop that has all your kilobucks worth of special software on it, and watching it go down the drain as someone trips over your power cord and brings it down to the deck in 5 pieces; you can use ANY computer that might be around; windows, linux, unix, mac, makes no difference - if it can display a web page and all the keys work, it can be your PLC programmer (you could even use a HMI that might be already connected via ethernet). No more need for using outdated laptops because they're the only ones with serial ports.
Then I started to think, well if I've thought about it, someone else probably already has, and beat me to the punch, as usual. So I'm asking here, is there anything on the market that meets my description?
After a series of unfortunate events & much frustration today with Allen Bradley's crappy crap, I started to think about these SBCs. I was thinking it would be so damned easy to use a PLC where the programming software is already in the PLC. Just plug in ethernet, type in IP address in the browser, and a Java-based programming page appears. No more special 300$ cable for each and every different model# of PLC. No more compatibility issues. No more fussy sofware, with fussy installation proceduress & windows version conflicts. No more memory-hogging expansive software suites and fussy licensing procedures. No more monthly patches & updates. No more going into configuration to change the backplane layout - I/O modules are plug & play hot-swappable, stackable in any order - need another one, just slap it on the end. No more staking your livelihood on the hopeful survival of a single-point failure laptop that has all your kilobucks worth of special software on it, and watching it go down the drain as someone trips over your power cord and brings it down to the deck in 5 pieces; you can use ANY computer that might be around; windows, linux, unix, mac, makes no difference - if it can display a web page and all the keys work, it can be your PLC programmer (you could even use a HMI that might be already connected via ethernet). No more need for using outdated laptops because they're the only ones with serial ports.
Then I started to think, well if I've thought about it, someone else probably already has, and beat me to the punch, as usual. So I'm asking here, is there anything on the market that meets my description?