How Opto 22 Makes Manufacturing Easy
Alarm horns were blaring during a muggy summer day at a steel manufacturing company in the Chicago suburbs. Three air compressor units each as large as a small SUV had been shutting off all day due to high air temperature. Plus, the dehydrator unit drying out the compressed air was working overtime with the humidity. When the air compressor units are down, the production lines were down. Fortunately, Corso Systems was there to solve this problem after helping the company integrate many of their manufacturing operations over the previous eight years.
The compressor room already had a set of dampers to improve air flow by opening and closing the industrial blinds in the windows, along with dampers and fans in the the ceiling to exhaust the warm air outside the roof to keep the room cool.
The ceiling exhaust fans were controlled by two VFDs on the wall, but nothing was integrated into a control system of any kind. The shop foreman had to go into the room periodically to manually adjust the damper positions and VFDs speeds. His attention was pulled in a ton of different directions managing downtime on the floor, and the compressor room was inconveniently located for making normal rounds. The only way the foreman knew that the air compressors were down was when no compressed air was available in the building.
Luckily, all the dampers could be controlled by a PLC, and integrating the two VFDs controlling the fans was straightforward with the Modbus protocol.
A week later Corso Systems, was ready to deploy an automated solution. A small control panel with two Opto 22 groov RIO units. One would handle the I/O, and the other ran the application using the CODESYS runtime on the other RIOs to manage all of the logic. Data from the RIOs was integrated into the facility’s Ignition SCADA system which triggers text notifications for alarm conditions. Now, the whole system could be managed from anywhere in the plant from a mobile phone using the Perspective Module.
This system reduced overall compressor related downtime by 99% for the facility, and easily managed both weather extremes: blowing out hot air in summer, and keeping the room warm in spite of the frigid Chicago temperatures in winter.
The Opto 22 groov Hardware Lineup
Like many PLC manufacturers, Opto 22 offers a wide range of hardware to meet the needs of any sized manufacturer. For large scale production lines with many I/O points, we use the groov EPIC line of controllers. For smaller systems like the air compressor room detailed above, we like the groov RIO units which feature configurable I/O. Both the groov EPIC and groov RIO units have full access to CODESYS, Node-RED, and Opto 22’s HMI platform groov View.
For a more distributed approach, you can combine the groov RIO and groov EPIC. For example, in wastewater treatment, distributed systems are the norm. You could use a groov EPIC to control your main treatment facility and install groov RIOs in the remote pump stations. This approach will saves you the cost of a full-blown PLC when you only need a handful of I/O points at a given site.
Another excellent tool in the groov lineup is the groov RIO EMU (Energy Monitoring Unit). This device gives you the ability to monitor and manage power usage for your facility and equipment in the familiar RIO form factor. If you’re using Ignition we even released an Ignition Exchange Resource with everything you need to integrate an EMU with Ignition in just a few clicks.
Modern Integration Capabilities
A common frustration with standard PLC hardware is that your equipment will need to use the same communication protocols. An extremely frustrating example is if you need to integrate Allen Bradley PLCs with Modbus devices. This will usually require an additional protocol converter in the panel, or a decent amount of development time to use Ignition to translate everything instead. Another big frustration is the the need to buy specific PLC development software to access your PLCs and manage their operation.
Fortunately, Opto 22 avoids all of these frustrating scenarios by adding all the necessary modern integration capabilities within their platform. You can choose from “low code” systems like the Opto 22 PAC Control system with a flowchart style programming interface, or NodeRED. If you need to get into complex PLC logic, the CODESYS runtime engine is built into the hardware giving you full access to everything you can do in CODESYS. This will also allow you to connect directly with Allen Bradley hardware using Ethernet/IP, any Modbus device using the CODESYS Modbus libraries, OPC-UA with the built-in OPC-UA server, or just about any other protocol.
The groov hardware itself supports Modbus, OPC-UA, and MQTT, and also has a built-in API for accessing any data in the unit to integrate it with your SCADA system or other devices. It can even run Ignition Edge!
“Behind” the groov hardware, you also have full access (with security, and this system is disabled by default) to the Linux operating system. This gives you access to run other software, databases, or even VPN tools on the groov hardware, making it much more capable as a manufacturing solution than any other PLC on the market.
Security and Access
Cybersecurity is a hot topic in the manufacturing world. Opto 22 takes this very seriously and provides a fully integrated, secure system out of the box. Their solutions allow you to manage PLC access with usernames and passwords, as well as SSL certificates, preventing anyone who has access to your network to see what traffic is moving across your network. This also allows you to securely connect your groov hardware to your SCADA systems. The groov hardware has multiple ethernet ports to make network segmentation a breeze.
Unlike every other PLC on the market, Opto 22 also offers a VPN solution on the hardware itself with OpenVPN. This simplifies security when your devices are connected to the internet. It locks down access, so that anyone without an approved OpenVPN account won’t be able to acces the hardware. We have also used industry standard tools Wireguard and Tailscale running on the Linux backend for VPN access without any additional hardware required. These options make groov devices far more capable than just a PLC.
Opto 22 fully supports MQTT and Sparkplug B in their hardware which lets you take full advantage of the security benefits of MQTT.
groov’s Built-In SCADA Solutions
If you are using Ignition in your facility (or want to start), the groov EPIC and RIO support Ignition running directly on their hardware. This makes it a one-stop shop for anyone looking for modern PLC hardware with Ignition integration. This is extremely powerful for remote sites with a groov RIO running Ignition, then using a Remote Tag Provider to connect data from the local Ignition instance on the RIO up to a centralized Ignition gateway.
If you aren’t using Ignition and still need a way to build an operator interface, you can use the built-in groov View system to create and manage custom screens. We have detailed tutorials for creating projects with trending, recipe management, and even database integrations with groov View. Opto 22 has a handful of demos on their site running on groov View, username: trial, password: opto22
If you are familiar with web development you could even run a local web server on the groov’s Linux Operating system integrated with the groov’s built-in API, similar to our web server example on the Siemens S7 PLC line.
Wrapping Up
From critical manufacturing applications like the air compressor HVAC system discussed above to integrating a camera into a groov EPIC for a fun booth demo, Opto 22 can help you solve any challenge you may face.
Opto 22 uses a very straight forward and modern approach with their hardware, giving you access to more horsepower and functionality than any other PLC offering on the market.
Using groov View you can install a groov EPIC or RIO and have a fully functional control system out of the box, or you can easily integrate them into a larger control system using Ignition, the built-in groov API, and modern tools like MQTT and Sparkplug B.
Best of all, their hardware is made right here in the USA! They have an amazing support team and have helped us solve complex programming challenges over the years, well beyond what any other vendor offers. If you ever want to see their hardware in action, we used it for a cool project in the ICC Build-a-Thon, and they have been used for other year’s ICC Build-a-Thons with great results!
Ready to get started with the power of Opto 22 hardware?
Corso Systems is a certified Opto Partner, get in touch with us to discuss your next project, and how an Opto 22 groov RIO or groov EPIC can help make it happen.
Schedule an intro call with Cody Johnson in sales ASAP
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