We work with many PLC's for our system projects and we need to develop ladders for the same. More often,we have to ship the PLC hardware to
the project location wth very little time to test the ladders written.
Can anyone advice on some software which would facilitate testing the PLC ladders without a physical PLC available.

 

If you use the Modicon Concept IEC 1131 software with any of their controllers, you have a simulator built into the standard software that
will allow you to perform logic checkout without the need for a PLC. It allows you to download the program into memory of your PC and the you can operate the simulated PLC in the same way you would an actual plc. You can force I/O to see the reacation of the animated logic, etc. You can even write additional logic to test PIDs, etc and then just delete this logic before loading the actual PLC. If you want more info, just let me know.

 

I use only Siemens products, and I, of course, suggest to use PLCSim (now avaiable on 5.0v sp1) for simulate ladder and I/O module. I think that not runs with Profibus I/O but if you use only local I/O you can simulate all plc features. Note this products is avaiable only for 300 & 400 series, and not for 200 series. If anyone knows a Sim-Software for 200 please get info:
I have the problem of Subhro Sengupta on 200 ladder logic.
Many PLC manufacturer have them simulating software ...

Best Regards
Gabriele Corrieri

 

As other software vendors, Allen Bradley has also one software called Emulator (for RSLogix 5/500). Same thing with others, it can simulate your project even without the physical PLC and test if it runs as what you expected. For any other reasons, you can compare prices of these softwares and the ease of use and configurations. It will all depend on you, what software you will use (the software you used to operate or program). Regards.