To say that Arduino is, for a lot of, synonymous with microcontrollers isn’t any exaggeration. The corporate’s success within the hobbyist and academic markets is known, and its current strikes into the economic market with its Arduino Professional vary have been having fun with equal consideration. Now, it is coming for the programmable logic controller (PLC) market — however can it compete with the incumbents?
To realize a toe-hold within the sector, in addition to to handle what the corporate initiatives might be a worsening expertise hole as retiring engineers and builders aren’t being changed with contemporary blood boasting the mandatory abilities, Arduino has launched the PLC Starter Equipment — a bundle that features its range-topping Opta WiFi “mini PLC,” two quick-start simulator boards for inputs and outputs, and all of the equipment you’ll want to get the whole lot working, plus a free on-line coaching course claimed at 20 hours of content material.
Be a part of us as we dive deep into the Opta ecosystem, and see if Arduino’s magic lightning can strike twice.
{Hardware}
Arduino Opta Lite/Opta RS485/Opta WiFi
- Processor: STMicroelectronics STM32H747XI (Cortex-M7 at 480MHz, Cortex-M4 at 240MHz)
- Reminiscence: 1MB RAM, 2MB inner and 16MB QSPI exterior flash
- Coprocessor: Microchip ATECC608B safe ingredient
- Community: 10/100 Ethernet (TCP/IP or Modbus TCP, all fashions), RS485 (Opta RS485 and Opta WiFi solely), Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Low Power (Opta WiFi solely)
- Inputs: 8× configurable digital/analog (12-24V digital, 0-10V analog), 1× push-button swap
- Outputs: 4× electromechanical relays (250VAC, 10A) with standing LEDs
- Clock: Inside real-time clock module, typical 10-day retention
- Chassis: Plastic housing with screw terminals, IP20 safety score, built-in DIN rail mount
- Energy: 12-24VDC, USB Kind-C (programming solely)
- Enlargement: AUX port, appropriate with Arduino Opta Digital and Analog Enlargement Modules
- Working temperature: -20°C to +50°C (-4°F to +122°F)
- Programming: Arduino IDE 2, Arduino PLC IDE (IEC-61131-3 Ladder Diagram (LD), Operate Block Diagram (FBD), Sequential Operate Chart (SFC), Structured Textual content (ST), Instruction Checklist (IL))
- Worth: Opta Lite $146.40, Opta RS485 $160.80, Opta WiFi $193.20
Arduino Opta Digital Enlargement Module
- Inputs: 16× configurable digital/analog (12-24V digital, 0-24V analog)
- Outputs: 8× electromechanical relays (250VAC, 6A, D1608E) or 8× solid-state relays (24VDC, 2A, D1608S) with standing LEDs
- Enlargement: AUX port, appropriate with further Enlargement Modules
- Energy: 12-24VDC
- Worth: D1608E $136.80, D1608S $146.40
Arduino Opta Analog Enlargement Module
- Inputs: 6× configurable analog (0-10V voltage/0-20mA present, 2× RTD PT100 temperature sensor appropriate)
- Outputs: 6× digital with pulse-width modulation (PWM) assist, 2× configurable analog (0-10V voltage/0-20mA present) with standing LEDs
- Enlargement: AUX port, appropriate with further Enlargement Modules
- Energy: 12-24VDC
- Worth: TBA
Arduino PLC Starter Equipment
- 1× Arduino Opta WiFi
- 1× Arduino DIN Simul8 with 8× toggle switches, 8× sign traces, DIN rail mount
- 1× Arduino DIN Celsuis with Texas Devices TMP236A2DBZR temperature sensor, 2× resistive heating parts, DIN rail mount
- 3× 20cm (round 7.9″) cables (white, black, crimson)
- 1× USB Kind-C cable
- 1× World 24V 1A energy provide
- 20-hour Discover PLC coaching course
- Worth: $385
Because the specs above present, the Opta is not a single gadget: it is a rising ecosystem. The unique Opta Lite, Opta RS485, and Opta WiFi modules sit on the coronary heart of that ecosystem, providing a DIN-mountable industrially-focused logic controller platform based mostly round STMicro’s dual-core STM32H747XI system-on-chip. For individuals who would possibly discover the eight inputs and 4 outputs limiting, the brand new Opta Digital and Analog Enlargement Modules clip right into a compact AUX growth header to spice up pin rely significantly — and may be daisy-chained as much as 5 modules deep should you’re nonetheless working out of pins.
The PLC Starter Equipment is nicely thought out, however wants a second Opta and a DC motor to match the course materials’s necessities. (📷: Gareth Halfacree)
It is the Arduino PLC Starter Equipment that’s more likely to be of most curiosity, although. A current addition to the household, the gathering is designed to assist handle the talents scarcity in industrial automation — whereas, handily, getting a brand new technology of engineers and programmers invested within the Arduino ecosystem. It bundles an Arduino Opta WiFi, the range-topping mannequin, with two “simulator” modules for enter and output — permitting you to shortly construct a testbench surroundings on a single brief size of DIN rail (not included).
The Arduino PLC Starter Equipment is not simply concerning the {hardware} within the bundle: it is designed to be used with a web-based coaching course developed by Arduino and which covers the gamut from the historical past of programmable logic controllers to inter-device communication by way of Modbus RS485. In whole, there is a claimed 20 hours of content material included — primarily designed for many who are coming to the world of PLCs from Arduino’s extra conventional microcontroller household.
Leaping to PLCs
Basically, the Arduino Opta PLCs are microcontrollers in a flowery housing and with just a few built-in peripherals. Should you had any doubt about that, it could be instantly dispelled by the very fact you may program any Opta mannequin utilizing the usual Arduino IDE 2 and Wiring library — even to the purpose that many current Arduino sketches may be simply loaded onto the Opta with a minimal of modification.
PLCs, although, reside in a barely completely different area to a standard microcontroller. Key to that is how they’re programmed, which usually entails utilizing a language that adheres to the IEC-61131-3 customary — first printed in 1993. These languages are break up into two logical varieties: the text-based languages Structured Textual content (ST) and Instruction Checklist (IL); and the graphical languages Ladder Diagram (LD), Operate Block Diagram (FBD), and Sequential Operate Chart (SFC).
The Arduino PLC IDE is accessible, however unavoidably extra complicated than the traditional Arduino IDE 2. (📷: Gareth Halfacree)
For this, Arduino has developed a separate built-in improvement surroundings dubbed, sensibly sufficient, the Arduino PLC IDE. Not like the usual Arduino IDE, it helps the complete gamut of IEC-61131-3 languages — and, additionally in contrast to the usual Arduino IDE, it requires a license. For these wanting to make use of it with the Portenta Machine Management board, meaning an extra $17.60 price on prime of the {hardware} value; for Opta customers, although, a license is included as customary with the {hardware}.
The necessity to license the IDE is not the one speed-bump awaiting newcomers to the Opta household, both. The Arduino IDE is legendary for its cross-platform compatibility, being installable on the whole lot from a Home windows or macOS laptop computer to Linux working on a Raspberry Pi; the Arduino PLC IDE, in contrast, is a Home windows-exclusive package deal — and is proscribed to Home windows 10 or greater on 64-bit x86 {hardware} at that, that means it is incompatible with the brand new Home windows on Arm units hitting the market this 12 months.
Studying logic
Assuming that Home windows exclusivity is not a deal-breaker, putting in the Arduino PLC IDE is a comparatively painless course of. As soon as put in, you may open it up and begin a program in one of many 5 supported IEC-61131-3 languages — and it is even potential to combine IEC-61131-3 initiatives with Arduino sketches, should you’ve legacy code you are seeking to deliver with you to the world of Opta.
The coaching course, which is freely accessible for all registered Arduino customers to learn no matter whether or not or not they’ve purchased the PLC Starter Equipment, takes a short while to get to going hands-on along with your first challenge. The primary chapter, which Arduino fairly pessimistically assumes will take the reader a full hour to know, briefly touches on the Arduino IDE 2 and Arduino PLC IDE and their variations, then affords an summary of Ladder Diagram, Operate Block Diagram, and Structured Textual content — of which solely two, Ladder Diagram and Operate Block Diagram, truly make an look within the course.
The bundled coaching course guarantees to cowl Structured Textual content alongside Ladder Diagram and Block Diagram, however fails to ship. (📷: Arduino)
The second chapter, which is extraordinarily unlikely to take even the novice reader the 2 hours Arduino estimates, takes a step again and affords a potted historical past of PLCs and the Modbus protocol earlier than wanting on the options of the Opta. Even the following chapter, which is by some means estimated to take solely an hour regardless of being significantly extra technical than those previous it, does not go hands-on, as a substitute specializing in an summary of the Modbus TCP/IP protocol — and, disappointingly, sticking to the outdated “Grasp/Slave” terminology many initiatives have moved past.
It is not till the fourth chapter that you simply truly get to make the Opta do one thing, and in traditional {hardware} “good day, world” custom that one thing is lighting up an LED. Eagle-eyed readers skimming the Arduino PLC Starter Equipment’s checklist of parts could also be shocked that there is not any point out of LEDs in there, however there is a good cause for that: all fashions of Opta, together with the bundled Opta WiFi, function built-in standing LEDs for his or her outputs. Toggle a relay and the correspondingly-numbered LED illuminates — whether or not or not there’s something related to mentioned relay.
Logical fallacies
This important first challenge is written in Ladder Diagram, and the chapter walks you thru the method step-by-step. It does not, nevertheless, actually clarify what you are doing: you create a swap object, assign it a variable, and depart the contact kind set to “regular” — with no clarification of what meaning, nor while you’d use the opposite choices of “negate,” “optimistic,” or “detrimental.” Likewise, the much more quite a few settings for coil kind aren’t defined — and whereas the information claims you will be utilizing the digital enter simulator board included within the bundle, it is truly written to make use of the Opta’s onboard user-programmable button as a substitute.
The second challenge is not a lot of an enchancment, as not solely does it not make use of both of the enter boards included within the PLC Starter Equipment nevertheless it requires a element not discovered within the bundle: a 24VDC motor. The chapter opens with controlling the lacking motor with Ladder Diagram, then strikes on to Purposeful Block Diagram. The subsequent chapter once more appears to be like at controlling the motor you have not received, bidirectionally this time, then the following into combining the whole lot right into a four-output management system for the motor that also wasn’t included.
The enter and output “simulator” boards are a spotlight of the bundle, but go solely unused till the final chapter. (📷: Gareth Halfacree)
At this level you are anticipated to be 12 hours into the 20 hour course, and you’ve got used neither of the simulator boards included within the bundle. You would possibly anticipate that to vary for the following part of the course, however you would be dissatisfied: as a substitute, the course spends the following 5 hours on configuration communication between two Opta PLCs over a Modbus TCP/IP community — one thing you once more cannot do with simply the {hardware} included within the Arduino PLC Starter Equipment, requiring because it does two Opta PLCs. It is solely as you enter into the final three hours of the 20-hour course, bizarrely, that the temperature sensor board is talked about.
Actually, it is solely within the final chapter of the course — greater than half of which, at 11 hours, you may’t truly comply with hands-on until you purchase a motor and a second Opta PLC — that you simply’re proven the way to wire the 2 simulator boards up, making a challenge that makes use of two of the switches on the enter board to regulate resistive heaters on the temperature sensor board then captures the altering temperature utilizing the Arduino PLC IDE’s “Oscilloscope” perform — “truly an acquisition software program,” the information’s writer writes.
Highly effective potential
The course, then, is a little bit of a bust. The writing is clunky, bounces off the floor of the subjects it goals to cowl with out making an actual dent, and focuses predominantly on {hardware} not included within the Arduino PLC Starter Equipment — solely making use of the 2 bundled simulation boards within the very ultimate chapter. It is on this challenge the place you are additionally informed you will want a “router swap” and “LAN cable,” that are by no means talked about once more and don’t kind a part of the challenge’s wiring diagram: the Opta WiFi is as a substitute related on to a controlling PC over USB and no community performance is used.
The coaching course will get a failing grade, however that does not imply you ought to be turned off the Opta ecosystem as an entire. The PLC Starter Equipment’s simulation boards are a intelligent strategy to lowering the quantity of {hardware} you’ll want to experiment with PLC programming, and it is a disgrace the course does not open with their use.
The Opta PLCs, the Enlargement Modules, and even the simulator boards are all simply mountable on a regular DIN rail. (📷: Gareth Halfacree)
For these keen to place within the legwork to study PLC programming themselves, fairly than counting on the supplies Arduino has offered, or who’re already accustomed to IEC-61131-3 programming, there’s quite a bit to love concerning the Opta platform. The Arduino PLC IDE is accessible, if additionally unavoidably extra complicated than the Arduino IDE 2, and the {hardware} is undeniably highly effective. The brand new Digital and Analog Enlargement Modules, particularly, provide a good way to simply improve the capabilities of a base Opta with out having so as to add a number of PLCs to a challenge or get tangled in pointless wiring — and Analog Enlargement Module’s true analog output capabilities are notably tantalizing.
The facility of the {hardware} and IDE, sadly, make the failings of the coaching course much more obvious. The course claims it is going to use Structured Textual content in addition to Ladder Diagram and Purposeful Block Diagram, however there is not any signal of it being utilized in any of the supplies reviewed right here. There’s use of the Ethernet port to attach two Opta PLCs collectively over Modbus TCP/IP, should you’re keen to purchase a second Opta PLC to go along with the one in your Starter Equipment, however nothing about utilizing it to hook up with the Arduino Cloud or related. Much more unusual is the very fact neither Wi-Fi nor Bluetooth, main promoting factors of the bundled Opta WiFi PLC, are used within the course in any respect — leaving you questioning why Arduino did not merely embody the cheaper Opta RS485 or Opta Lite within the bundle as a substitute and reduce the worth accordingly.
Conclusion
As the corporate’s first actual try to interrupt into the PLC market, the Opta ecosystem is an actual gem. The {hardware} is slick, the form-factor well-suited to integration into current industrial automation setups, and the launch of the brand new Enlargement Modules reveals that Arduino is severe about providing the capabilities PLC programmers want — albeit it, for now at the least, completely for these engaged on Home windows.
The coaching course is a disappointment, it is true, however not irredeemable: Arduino, with its origins in schooling, has an extended historical past of delivering accessible tutorials over time, and it is to be hoped that the presently-weak supplies meant to assist the Arduino PLC Starter Equipment might be improved sooner or later. It is going to be fascinating to see, too, if the course is expanded to cowl extra of the Opta WiFi’s built-in capabilities — particularly Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity.
The {hardware} aspect of the Opta is simple to advocate, however the much-vaunted “20 hour” course wants work. (📷: Gareth Halfacree)
For now, although, the Arduino PLC Starter Equipment is barely really helpful for many who do not have to be walked by the whole lot step-by-step and who’re keen on hands-on self-directed studying — or these with current PLC programming expertise who need a helpful {hardware} bundle for experimentation earlier than making the soar from their current platforms to Opta. For these, it is a well-thought-out assortment of components that serves as a superb place to begin for a spread of initiatives.
The Arduino PLC Starter Equipment is now obtainable on the Arduino Retailer at $385; the standalone Opta PLCs are priced at $146.40 for the Opta Lite, $160.80 for the Opta RS485, and $193.20 for the Opta WiFi as-reviewed; the D1608E Digital Enlargement Module is $136.80 with the D1608S at $146.40, with pricing for the yet-to-launch Analog Enlargement Module not obtainable on the time of writing.
Extra info on the Opta ecosystem is out there on the Avnet web site.
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