The new technology development of IPC and PLC is the perfect reflection of engineers' requirements for equipment application performance: hardware standardization of controllers, and various control requirements of users can be changed through software.
In fact, the difference between industrial computer (IPC) and PLC is not in appearance, nor in the working environment used, but in their functions:
IPC (Industrial Personal Computer) is a convenient control device that uses the PCI bus and PC/104 bus of a personal computer. ICLAS Electronics has nearly 20 years of production experience in the production of industrial personal computers, and the quality of PLC control cabinet manufacturers is worthy of guarantee. Industrial personal computers have the characteristics of industrial field applications, and at the same time make full use of the PC software environment. Users can easily choose products from different manufacturers.
The PLC is a universal and easy-to-use device specially designed for sequence control using computer principles. It uses specially designed hardware, and the performance is determined by the control program. In order to meet the needs of industrial field applications and secondary development of users, both IPC and PLC actively develop the technical performance of high-reliability, networking and high-performance user development software.
The difference between industrial computer and PLC are:
1. Hardware structure
Both industrial computer and PLC are composed of central processing unit CPI, memory, input and output devices, etc. The PLC control cabinet system is a special calculator, but it has a different bus architecture from the industrial computer.
2. Cost-effectiveness
Both IPC and PLC have the characteristics of high efficiency, high integration, modularization, mass production and wide application. When the control system design does not require more complex data processing, graphic display or motion trajectory, PLC controllers can be used to achieve better cost-effectiveness. Therefore, the general pipe bending machine chooses an integrated PLC controller to meet the requirements. Its control cost is also relatively low, on the contrary, you can only choose the control system composed of IPC+board or IPC+PLC card.
3. Peripheral configuration
Compared with PLC, industrial computer has more abundant external devices, such as monitors, drivers, printers, network interface cards, etc., and they are all standard components. Peripherals produced by different manufacturers can be used with each other as long as they are equipped with corresponding driver software. However, there are fewer types of peripherals in PLC, and they are highly specific, and peripherals of different brands cannot be used universally.
4. Man-machine interface tools
A touch industrial display is a tool that connects humans and PLCs. It can be used to set parameters, display data, describe the automatic control process in the form of curves, animations, etc., and simplify the PLC program. Compared with traditional analog instruments and button consoles, it is smaller in size and simplifies the control connection.
5. Programming tools
For industrial computer, high-level language such as C language can be used for programming, so that the written application program is easy to be modularized, and the logic of PLC automation control cabinet operation is strong, but the software compilation time is long, debugging assistance, and software programmers need to have higher software and hardware Knowledge, while PLC uses ladder diagram, short software and hardware development cycle, easy maintenance and fault diagnosis.
