PLC Brand Recommendations
Hey everyone, im currently looking into different suitable PLC’s for our small machine.
We are moving away from ESp32 and Arduino towards proper industrial PLC’s.
I looked at various options such as Siemens, Beckhoff etc. (We are based in Europe),
But the prices can go up pretty quickly especially adding insane License costs.
I even talked to Beckhoff directly regarding their MX System (which honestly sounds pretty damn cool except the price haha).
So cheap as I am, I have quickly found more affordable alternatives, specifically the Leadshine MC500 series.
(https://www.leadshine.com/products/control/plc/mc500-series.html)
Now the plc looks pretty interesting and seems to be able to handle everything we need.
Couple I/O’s, EtherCAT etc.
Problem ? -> I can not find a single report or person that really used these PLC’s which made me hesitant.
They also dont have their Pricing public, but on jlcmc they sell them for around 200 USD (pretty good)
https://jlcmc.com/product/I10/plcs
Now here my question, have you ever heard of Leadshine PLC’s or even used them ?
Alternatively do you have recommendations of what I could use instead ?
The whole Machine is fairly small:
- Total I/O’s -> around 15 Inputs (most of them digital) and around 15 Outputs
- 2 Closed Loop Steppers that move 2 axis -> here my plan was using closed loop pulse generating Stepper Drivers that connect through ethercat.
- And 3 open loop steppers (not critical -> like they are conveyors only using start and stop so no need of real “axis” control.
- Additionally we want to connect the PLC to our Linux PC with a bigger database and have realtime information exchange.
But thats about it.
-> ah and the Steppers, I was planning on using StepperOnline Pulse generating Stepper Drives that can just be connected through EtherCat with the PLC :)