Industrial control my way

Peter Jakacki

Since there has been some discussion about industrial applications I have a fairly new unit here which is DIN rail mountable and modular both internally and externally. In this picture you can see the Prop hiding beneath the shade of a 4 channel high-current half-bridge module. This PLC style unit only has 8 I/O but it packs a punch with every one. There are various modules including CAN bus and Analog and thermocouple as well as plain-jane OC outputs and digital inputs.

The front panel LEDs are all bicolor and under software control via 74HC595s. On the main board is the Prop, EEPROM, dataflash, PPC chips (underneath) monitoring the I/Os as well as RS485 and switch-mode regulation. The side connector at the front of the photo is actually my PropLink variant with I2C and TV. I have successfully run heavy motor loads and the MOSFETs have been very well behaved except for that little incident when my test probe slipped and fused a MOSFET to the copper. All the high-current tracks are wide, unmasked and tinned, as well as short so they don't vaporize very easily.

I have current applications where these are stacked together on the DIN rail over the RS-485 MODBUS and run stepper motors, DC motors, solenoids, etc replacing traditional PLCs and expensive motor controllers. As a bonus I output the on-board TV signal to a 7" LCD which makes for a cool interface and includes a graphic troubleshooting guide to help prevent expensive call-outs.

*Peter*

QuattroRS4

Peter,
Very nice Indeed !

Regards,
John twomey

▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
'Necessity is the mother of invention'

Those who can, do.Those who can’t, teach.

mctrivia

very nice and well though out design

▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Need to make your prop design easier or secure? Get a PropMod has crystal, eeprom, and programing header in a 40 pin dip 0.7" pitch module with uSD reader, and RTC options.

Tubular

Great stuff Peter. I was working on something vaguely similar so can appreciate the architecture there.

Is the 8 pin connector at the bottom for the prop plug?

tubular

Timothy D. Swieter

WOW!! That looks great. Is that an off the shelf case or something you designed Peter? Way nice.

So - you could make a mini, portable controller using the 3.0" display that I offer on Brilldea. You said you have a 7.0" display you use, so maybe cutting down on the size isn't advisable, but you can't put the 7.0" may not be as portable.

Do tell us more about the applications - this is a very nice looking product.

▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Timothy D. Swieter, E.I.
www.brilldea.com - Prop Blade, LED Painter, RGB LEDs, 3.0" LCD Composite video display, eProto for SunSPOT
www.tdswieter.com

Peter Jakacki

The bottom row of pins are compatible with the prop plug but I use a double row version with I2C, +5V and the TV signal on the other 4-pins.

Here's a photo of the bottom of the pcb and those two beady black eyes are the C8051F334 monitoring PPCs on the I2C bus. Since the outputs of the drivers are designed to operate to over 30VDC the resnets are there as voltage dividers and also as I/O isolators so that the PPCs can override the Prop's direct I/O control in the event of a fault. The drivers are locked down at startup as well so the Prop has to be up and running to issues I2C commands to unlock the drivers.The unmasked tracks in the foreground can be tinned up if necessary but their fusibility rating is relatively high anyway.

*Peter*

Tubular

Peter, looks like you've done a great job solving those industrial requirements (24vdc, fail safe, isolation etc), well done.

Would it also be possible to put a watchdog clock from the Prop to the PPCs in case of Prop failure?

Not that I've seen it yet...

tubular

Peter Jakacki

Tubular, The only failure I anticipate from the Prop will be one of my own doing via software. But yes, it is easy enough to create a watchdog that shuts down the I/O in case the Prop fails to communicate properly. So if you were to reprogram the Prop for instance then the PPCs would automatically take the drivers offline.

*Peter*

Cluso99

Very nice Peter.

▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Links to other interesting threads:

· Home of the MultiBladeProps: TriBladeProp, SixBladeProp, website (Multiple propeller pcbs)
· Prop Tools under Development or Completed (Index)
· Emulators (Micros eg Altair, and Terminals eg VT100) - index
· Search the Propeller forums (via Google)

My cruising website is: ·www.bluemagic.biz·· MultiBladeProp is: www.bluemagic.biz/cluso.htm

CannibalRobotics

Very cool!
I'm interested in the answer to Timothy's question, is that an OTS case or did you have it made?
Again, really nice design.
Jim-

▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
When your problem seems insurmountable, read the forum for a while.
Solve someone else's problems and yours won't seem so bad.

rjo_

Peter...

I think this thread could easily be called "serious robotics my way"... and I think there might be more than a few people here, who would like to know a lot more about this.

Rich

Joms

I am not sure what I would do with it, but I want one... GREAT JOB!

Peter Jakacki

Thanks guys, I'm been a bit tired and busy and just getting back to answering some questions. First off about the case, this is a standard OTS DIN rail enclosure. I have tracked down a common supplier of it at
au.mouser.com/Search/ProductDetail.aspx?qs=sGAEpiMZZMvXvCN7QvKaseaM1xOhvEPfcjrb8o%2f4I4U%3d
These are industrial spec enclosures and meet UL 94 V-0 flammability ratings etc. The black looks meaner than the green though.

I will catch up to the posts shortly.

*Peter*