RTA's Blog
MicroLogix in a Time of Maximum information
Oct
A lot of these blogs are about my faults. Probably because there are so many. It’s human nature. We all worry more about the things we don’t do well than praising ourselves for what we do well.
Over the years I have noticed that I have become less and less detailed oriented. In the old days I seemed to know everything there was to know about our business. I knew all the purchase orders, all the invoices, all the customers, even most of the code.
Now I don’t seem to have a handle on much of anything unless I make a concerted effort to learn (relearn?) it.
That’s probably true of all of us. There is a lot more to keep a handle on now. I now carry around a phone that is more sophisticated with more functionality than the IBM mainframe at my first job. Learning everything about that phone would take a week. Then there is my IPAD, laptop, various websites and a zillion other things. Even my Blu-ray has a myriad of complexity that I haven’t started to understand.
So, I don’t blame customers that call us and ask for help figuring out solutions for their factory or business automation systems. I have complete sympathy. We know they are running around in overload mode too. [I remember when I was a kid watching “Lost in Space”. The robot would get overloaded and flash all his lights, waive his arms and then shut down. He’s lucky – he could shutdown.]
A lot of what people ask about is the Rockwell MicroLogix line. There are a lot of processors and we have a lot of products that can add functionality to that line. They just aren’t sure what they need or if the product they pick out can help them with their current problem.
Let’s review the basics of the offerings from Rockwell:
| Controller | Short Description |
| Micrologix 1000 | Small footprint, small number of I/O points. RS232/RS485 port support DF/1 Full and Half Duplex. Other protocols can be added through an add on card |
| Micrologix 1100 | LCD Screen, more I/O options, web server, additional memory and Ethernet. Supports PCCC [traditional RA Protocol) over Ethernet. DF/1 Full and Half duplex, Modbus RTU and ASCII supported on the RS232/RS485 interface |
| Micrologix 1200 | Expanded I/O, Floating Point, High Speed Counters, Real Time Clock. DF/1 Full and Half duplex, Modbus RTU and ASCII supported on the RS232/RS485 interface. No Direct Ethernet interface. |
| Micrologix 1400 | The 1400 combines all the best features of the other controllers. LCD screen, Ethernet, Expanded I/O, Floating Point, High Speed Counters and more. Supports PCCC [traditional RA Protocol) over Ethernet. DF/1 Full and Half duplex, Modbus RTU and ASCII supported on the RS232/RS485 interface. |
| Micrologix 1500 | The 1500 is more of a traditional PLC with removeable processor, 1769 expansion I/O and more memory and I/O then other controllers. DF/1 Full and Half duplex, Modbus RTU and ASCII supported on the RS232/RS485 interface. No onboard Ethernet interface. |
Our engineers have added a lot of functionality to this processor family. More than I can talk about here but here’s a few of our most popular products.
Move ASCII Data to MicroLogix – Barcodes, Scale, RFID and other ASCII data can be easily captured and put into a Logix data table.
Move Modbus Data into MicroLogix– Scan a series of Modbus RTU devices and exchange those registers with file I/O in the MicroLogix
Move BACnet Data into MicroLogix– Exchange BACnet Client data with files in your MicroLogix PLC.
These are only some of the options for you and your MicroLogix PLCs. See the entire list of MicroLogix PLC Gateways here.
It’s tough keeping track of all this with everything else on your mind. I know I can’t do it. Hopefully this will help and anytime you have a question, just give us a call. We’ll be glad to help.
I started this out by talking about all my faults. The one fault I don’t have is being stingy with the time of our applications and development engineers so give them a call.
