PICoPLC: Free DIY PLC with Propeller
APStech-Attila
Posts: 38
Hi Proppers,
I have been working on adopting an old PLC software to support Propeller.
The concept is straight-forward: You draw the LADDER logic diagram in a GUI, switch to simulation mode and simulate your ladder program. When the simulation is done and you ladder works as expected, simply hit F12 and download the prop code into your demoboard!
As you can set all the IO assignments for your ladder diagram, you can develop your own PLC (or use Parallax relay card, etc.) !
The source .spin file is generated, so you can visualize your ladder variables with TVtext, implement special functions (like I2C expanders, etc.)
The software is totally free, and I am still searching for ways of improving this tool. (You can download the software from my homepage - please select English language
)
If you are an Assembler programmer, you could be interested in FlowProg as well.
Ideas, comments are welcome.
Kind regards,
Attila
I have been working on adopting an old PLC software to support Propeller.
The concept is straight-forward: You draw the LADDER logic diagram in a GUI, switch to simulation mode and simulate your ladder program. When the simulation is done and you ladder works as expected, simply hit F12 and download the prop code into your demoboard!
As you can set all the IO assignments for your ladder diagram, you can develop your own PLC (or use Parallax relay card, etc.) !
The source .spin file is generated, so you can visualize your ladder variables with TVtext, implement special functions (like I2C expanders, etc.)
The software is totally free, and I am still searching for ways of improving this tool. (You can download the software from my homepage - please select English language
)If you are an Assembler programmer, you could be interested in FlowProg as well.
Ideas, comments are welcome.
Kind regards,
Attila
Comments
And thanks for sharing.
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www.apstech.hu/index.php?option=com_rokdownloads&view=folder&Itemid=3&id=15%3Aflowprog〈=en
Sorry, but the flow prog documentation is... ummm ... planned
Link to PICoPLC:
www.apstech.hu/index.php?option=com_rokdownloads&view=folder&Itemid=3&id=6%3Apicoplc〈=en
This is great! i have been wondering, and was about to post the question, has anyone thought about ladder logic programming for the prop. i have worked in industrial maintenance for over 20 years and anyone that has knows the influence that ladder logic has in industrial machinery utilizing plc's as most are standardized to AB's and thier unrealistically high priced software. (although they do offer a free, chopped down version now, after many years). I think that a ladder logic based programming language coupled with the processing power of the prop is a perfect match for industrial use. as most maintenance and industrial engineers have over the years been forced to use and learn ladder logic in machine development, diagnosing and troubleshooting, we simply are comfortable with the concept of ladder logic and use in machinery control. A program like this, i believe, will open up the flood gates of embedded control designers and machine builders to lovingly adopt the Propeller (and the propeller 2 with the addition of onboard adc's) as a more affordable and more feature rich control enviroment for machine control!
Thank you very much for this and i commend you on you developmet of this software! Keep up the great work and if you like, i would definatly love to beta test this for you in a prop and digital i/o board setting.
Does this software have any analog functions or pid functions yet?
I would be grateful for beta testing [noparse]:)[/noparse] For the current release, the tests took weeks! 16 weeks actually [noparse]:)[/noparse]
The software software has analog functions, but not tested. I am sure, I will have time to implement if for Propeller by end of this year [noparse]:)[/noparse] PID will be implemented in summer.
Good grief! This is great.
While I prefer to program in Basic (no longer a valid name for such a rich language) VB6 & assembler I have spent years programming in Ladder so that people in an industrial environment can maintain and troubleshoot their process.
Thanks for the effort creating this and I hope it takes off for you.
Craig
Can you tell us what function blocks are implemented?
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www.mikronauts.com E-mail: mikronauts _at_ gmail _dot_ com 5.0" VGA LCD in stock!
Morpheus dual Prop SBC w/ 512KB kit $119.95, Mem+2MB memory/IO kit $89.95, both kits $189.95 SerPlug $9.95
Propteus and Proteus for Propeller prototyping 6.250MHz custom Crystals run Propellers at 100MHz
Las - Large model assembler Largos - upcoming nano operating system
please give some credits to Jonathan Westhues @ www.cq.cx for his software [noparse]:)[/noparse]
by the way, did you used his interpretable bytecode generator to create the spin code?
I was not able to run his source code on visual studio, how did you managed to get it work, with the perl scripts?
Fred
Hi, You are absolutely right, Jonathan Westhues did the base, and I am not very happy that the current version on the web does not contains his name. The story behind is a bit complex, however I have also tracked down, that the original sourcecode was Jonathan's work.
Anyway if you check out the upcoming release (the hungarian manual for it is already published, check pg 21-22) the well deserved credits will go to Jonathan Westhues.
Answering the other question: No, I did not use the bytecode generator for SPIN . The internal software structure has been radically changed. Basically the GUI editor, and the simulator part remain the same as for LDmicro.
Thanks very much for sharing your work with us! --> After downloading the flowprog.jar.zip file, can you tell us how to actually "run" the program? The folder has the JAR extension in it, but the folder is a "folder", not a "file", so JRE doesn't know how to run it. I'm at a loss as to how to actually start the program after it has been downloaded and extracted...
I've worked on the same project !!!
Modified LDmicro to fit the propeller chip !
My version creates a SPIN file too !!
I'm tyrying to add a configuration file to give LDmicro the possibility to use any SPIN object ,
at this time I can make any logic , use uart, and analog via a specific SPIN object (analog.spin) using an PCF8591 converter.
Atilla, you're my double !!!!
And yes, tanks to Jonathan Westhues who made his software free and give all the sources !!!
Best regards
Olivier
http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?144658-has-somebody-worked-with-PicoPLC&p=1151467&viewfull=1#post1151467
The program is awesome!
https://evotronics.eu/picoplc/