Module adds AS-i capability to PLC range
An
IDEC Electronics product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team
Oct 25, 2002
Idec Electronics has added an AS-i module to its MicroSmart PLC range.
Idec Electronics has added an AS-i module to its MicroSmart PLC range.
The module will plug on to a MicroSmart CPU and will provide connection to slave devices such as sensors, actuators and remote I/O including the new SwitchNet series of IDEC control units to be introduced in the near future.
AS-i is a type of fieldbus (compatible with the IEC62026 standard) which is primarily intended to be used to control sensors and actuators.
The master device, featuring automatic slave address assignment can communicate with slave devices recognising digital and analogue signals transmitted over the bus.
A two-core cable carries both data transmission and power supply requirements.
As all input/output states are bought back over a two-wire cable it can be seen there are considerable savings over traditional wiring methods - as much as 40%.
Up to 100m distance can be achieved before repeaters have to be used.
In the original AS-i specification up to 31 slaves could be connected providing a total of 248 I/O.
The later V2.1 specification doubled the number of slaves to 62, addressed as A and B modes, and so increases the I/O by 434.
The MicroSmart AS-I module can address both A and B modes.
Ordinary two-wire or the standard yellow AS-i cable can be connected to the module.
Setting up of the module and configuring slave addresses is achieved by simple menu options in the Idec WindLDR PLC programming software.
Configuration data is then saved to EEPROM.
Use of the two pushbuttons on the front of the module allows the configuration mode, normal protected mode, data exchange off mode and offline operation to be selected.
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