Can someone explain what is the basic difference between ABB PLC AC450 and AC110?

In our system We have AC450 controllers connected through master bus MB300 whereas AC110 are connected to AC450 through field bus.

I wonder why AC110 are not connected through MB300 in the network ?

 

Dear panthripu,

there is another poster here who seems to know quite a lot about ABB systems, so he may answer more correctly than myself.

My understanding is that at least one of these control systems was previously owned by another company before it was acquired by ABB. The AC400 family controller is also referred to as the "ADVANT" platform, and as you mentioned it uses the Masterbus 300 for communication.

The AC100 series of controllers use fieldbus for communication to the AC400 series controllers and finally to the operator station.

Again my understanding is one or both of these systems was acquired by ABB and integrated together. I hope this helps some to answer your question.

 

I think AC110 is an product and does not support new MB300 prot. where as AC450 support both MB300 & fieldbus.

 

Both these systems came originally from ASEA, so they are actually core Asea Brown Boveri product lines.

The reason your AC110 only talks fieldbus are entirely historical....

The AC450 is the latest evolution of the Masterpiece MP200 series controllers. They were developed as large scale DCS control systems - but at the time were much more PLC-like than the competition (Taylor MOD, Honeywell, Foxboro I/A to name a few). The MP200 and successors use the MasterBus 200 and later MB300 buses for peer-to-peer communication, and a proprietary Fieldbus for remote I/O modules. This fieldbus is now called Advant Fieldbus (AF100), and the old MB200 peer-to-peer bus is long dead.

The AC110 is the latest development of the old MasterPiece 100 series. These were originally mid level PLC type products, aimed at mid sized automation. Both product lines have always used the same programming language, but the AC100 series operating system has never supported the MB200 or MB300 communication bus - the required tasks simply don't exist in the AC100 series operating system. Instead they used the same I/O fieldbus protocol used by the MP200 and successors.

There is also the AC70 series which (sort of) evolved from the old Masterpiece 55 which was originally aimed at very small automation projects. These also use the same programming language and again also use the I/O fieldbus for comms.

The AC450 is a very stable and robust controller and is still well supported by ABB (and I've been programming them for nearly 20 years now). However, times change and it's been pretty much superseded by ABB's AC800M controller range for new projects. Incidentally, the AC800M originally came from an outside company (Alfa Laval) while the AC800F was originally a Hartman & Braun Freelance product.

Rob
www[.]lymac.co.nz

 

Rob, thanks for the clarification, I wish I had your history with these systems! I maintain a package of ac160 and ac410 controllers. The platforms have both had excellent reliability and I like the programming atmosphere of both. I see the day of migration coming in time from those who only know the windows point and click programming but for now I can enjoy working on these since others think its too archaic!

 

Hello Rob,

It seem you have much experience with ABB Advant Controller Currently, I have a problem that:

Customer have AC410 with S400-I/O thru Master Fieldbus. Now they want to remove some old S400 analog module (DXAX 452) and upgrade to S800-I/O with Advant Fieldbus 100. I offline-configured database for CI520 (AF100 card), CI810 (Fieldbus Communication Interface) and AI810, AO810. Well done. But when I tried to re-dimension Database for AC410 to declare S800 I/O, AF100, AF100 Station, S800 I/O, AF100 are OK, but can not declare "2" for Number of AF100 IO Station (means CI810). After #DIM, it always force to "0".

Pls help.

Regards,
Vu,

 

>Can someone explain what is the basic difference between ABB PLC AC450 and AC110?

The AC110 doesn't support the higher level MB300 network architecture, it is a PLC whereas the AC450 is a DCS. The main difference is much higher functionality and speed on the DCS.

The AC110 was developed when MB300 was not available yet, and there is no need to develop it now (for the AC160).

The AC110 is now obsolete, replaced by the AC160 and the latest AC800M. The AC800M supports the MB300 and can communicate with the AC450. The AC800M is a hybrid DCS, somewhere between PLC and DCS, most of the functionality of the DCS and plenty processing power.

James