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Hi,
I have an embedded system, the system has its own PC based interface and has physical interfaces for Ethernet and RS422.
I have a requirement to connect a number of Control Panels to this system. The type of panel I am looking at is a Siemens TP177B or similar. I have to say at this stage that I have no experience of PLC programming or of interfacing to control systems. When I read the Siemens literature I see reference to WinCC and WinCC flexible which appears to be a tool for configuring the panel to work with a PLC device.
I am trying to understand what options I have in connecting to a number of these panels.
The most obvious way is to connect the panels to a PLC, configure them using WinCC and then have the embedded system talk to the PCL, but I was wondering if there was a way of connecting these panels to my system directly using ethernet. The embedded system does not have a Profinet interface, but I could develop support for some form of protocol if I knew how to talk to the panel. The question is whether or not it is possible to connect directly to panels like these and exchange some form of protocol that would allow me receive button pushes and set control states on the panel screen.
I have an embedded system, the system has its own PC based interface and has physical interfaces for Ethernet and RS422.
I have a requirement to connect a number of Control Panels to this system. The type of panel I am looking at is a Siemens TP177B or similar. I have to say at this stage that I have no experience of PLC programming or of interfacing to control systems. When I read the Siemens literature I see reference to WinCC and WinCC flexible which appears to be a tool for configuring the panel to work with a PLC device.
I am trying to understand what options I have in connecting to a number of these panels.
The most obvious way is to connect the panels to a PLC, configure them using WinCC and then have the embedded system talk to the PCL, but I was wondering if there was a way of connecting these panels to my system directly using ethernet. The embedded system does not have a Profinet interface, but I could develop support for some form of protocol if I knew how to talk to the panel. The question is whether or not it is possible to connect directly to panels like these and exchange some form of protocol that would allow me receive button pushes and set control states on the panel screen.