Web HMI

B

Thread Starter

BAM

I am looking for Web HMI software that can read/write using Modbus TCP protocol from/into PLCs. The PLCs are located in remote places i.e. one PLC in a Building, second PLC in Shopping Mall, third in Gas Station etc. My application is different from a Factory HMI where you have a cluster of PLCs in one factory talking to one server and therefore it is not suitable for my kind of application. All my PLCs have a hardware bridge for Ethernet installed on site.

Can someone suggest a suitable Web HMI software for my application.
 
I have a free web based HMI called "HMI-Server" that might be suitable. You can download it from: "http://sourceforge.net/projects/mblogic/". It is part of the "MBTools" package.

You will want the latest release of the MBTools package (currently release 11). Click on "View all files" and scroll down to MB-Tools, and then scroll down to the latest version. The MB-Tools package contains several different independent programs which are packaged together for convenience.

Documentation for this is at: "http://mblogic.sourceforge.net/" The same documentation is packaged with the system and is available through the built-in help web server. The system installs with a self-standing demo which shows off all the features.

The system includes a server with an integrated Modbus/TCP driver. The server will serve up your HMI web pages and communicate with the PLC and with your web page. It also handles on-line help and you can add your own custom help pages. The documentation will tell you how to create your HMI web pages.

The web pages can include dynamic graphics such as push buttons, pilot lights, strip charts, etc. It also has alarms and events. The provided Javascript libraries will update the web page continuously in the background without requiring a page refresh.

You will need to provide security through something like a VPN or SSH tunneling. This is probably true for any system that allows you to write to the PLC.
 
S

Sergey Sorokin

Try www.controlsystemworks.com, it may work for you: it's web-based, it supports writes, it works with multiple data sources. It does not have a direct Modbus TCP driver in the package, but you can use a Modbus-OPC gateway of your choice.

If, for some reason, you cannot have your pool of PLCs running in the same network, you can deploy several CSWorks servers in multiple locations, build several HMI applications and run them in separate instances/frames of the browser.

 
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