Hi everyone,

If this isn't the right place, let me know and I will delete and repost if needs be.

I've just got hold of a FX3U-24MR unit. I've no previous experience with PLC's at all but have a little with Arduino and Rpi, so I'm hoping to teach myself as I go and looking for a good community to help.

I've got a project at work which I'm going to start - it's basically a motor and safety brake which has a braking monitor system to detect whether the brake is on/off, temperature, wear monitoring and a few other requirements.

Now for the silly questions...

1). The PLC came with a RS232 cable... is that what I program is with? I've only got a laptop so can I get a USB interface?

2). What program do I need to install so I can play around with ladder logic and download to the PLC etc? It says it's compatible with GX-developer and GX-work2. Are these free? Finally, does it burn it to the PLC or does it need to run live via the data cable?

Hopefully someone can help me get started and any other tips, no matter how simple they are would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

 

This might help -

https://dl.mitsubishielectric.com/dl/fa/document/manual/plc_fx/jy997d16601/jy997d16601q.pdf

Expand the youtube comments, links to software.

Regards, Dana.

 

Hello,

On point 1)

RS232 to usb adapters can be picked up quite cheaply (https://www.google.com/aclk?sa=L&ai...ocphy=1006891&hvtargid=pla-397003917010&psc=1)

 

Many PLCs program in what is called ladder logic, which is fairly intuitive to folks who understand relay logic.
Once created the program is downloaded to the PLC and it executes without any more computer connections. Usually there also exists an option of watching the lines of code execute, which is very useful. BUT you do need programming software to create the programs and for some PLC types that software is VERY expensive, while for some other brands it is free for the download version. the system that you have appears to use free software that you can download. Not knowing the specifics of the unit you have there is not much more I can say.

 

I use the FX series PLC and have the software, the programming cable is a special RS232 to the format used in the Mits PLC.
If you have this then apart form the S/W, that is all you need although not sure if it will work with USB adapter.

Once downloaded you can run the S/W and also monitor it on the PLC.
If sticking with the FX series, there is a very good book by John Ridley "FX Programming Book"
Max.

 

Freebee ladder logic compiler and IDE for PIC, AVR -

https://cq.cx/ladder.pl


Regards, Dana.