The iKAN-116S small-sized industrial LED display and the GW-7663 PROFINET to Modbus TCP gateway module provided by ICP DAS can be used to read and display the machine status from the PLC, so that the management personnel and equipment engineers can instantly obtain the real-time production capacity information. It will help reduce labor costs and improve the efficiency of optimizing production line management.
Introduction The customer is a well-known machine tool manufacturer that sets up a production line and provides intelligent solutions for the world’s leading manufacturer of aluminum wheels for passenger cars, commercial vehicles, and special vehicles. In conjunction with IIoT technology, the emphasis is on modeling, experience, and implementation-based solutions that can be used by the entire factory, providing a complete design to their customers.
In this case, there are five production lines in the factory, and each production line has five pieces of equipment (three lathes, one robotic arm, and one conveyor belt), so it is necessary to monitor the status of up to 25 machines at the same time. Since the used HMI screen in the original solution was too small for such a large factory area, it was inconvenient for management personnel to view the information. Therefore, the customer wanted with a new solution to enlarge the display for the machine’s status, so that the management personnel can easily view the information such as production capacity, or machine failure status in real-time to achieve the goal of optimizing the production line control.
ICP DAS's GW-7663 Gateway and iKAN LED Display for real-time Control of Machine Status The ICP DAS‘s GW-7663 gateway module allows a PROFINET PLC to access the Modbus TCP device, the ICP DAS‘s iKAN-116S small-sized industrial LED display, which instantly shows the machine’s data and status. Since there are five production lines in the factory, five GW-7663 gateway modules, and five iKAN-116S small-sized industrial LED displays are used to show the machine’s data and status of each production line. The structure of this solution is as follows:
The ICP DAS‘s GW-7663 gateway module is a slave device that supports the PROFINENT protocol, allowing PROFINET protocol PLC to directly connect to information on Modbus TCP master or slave devices through the GW-7663. In this case, after PLC processes the data of the monitored robotic arms, lathes, and other equipment, the data is displayed on the iKAN-116S small-sized industrial LED display through the ICP DAS‘s GW-7663 gateway module.
The ICP DAS‘s iKAN series industrial LED display has industrial-grade anti-noise capability, reliability, and stability. It supports ASCII and Unicode characters, which can be used to display text messages in multiple languages. It also supports various communication protocols, including Modbus TCP/RTU, CGI, CANopen, and others. The series can interact perfectly with numerous industrial control devices from different brands.
In this case, the iKAN-116S LED display can show up to sixteen English characters per line. Because of its small size, it does not take much space. It is highly suitable for placing in front of each production line, so that the management personnel can instantly obtain information such as production capacity, or machine failure status. All these can help to optimize the efficiency of production line management.
Data visualization
The new solution leverages Exosite's ExoSense® remote condition monitoring application and Murano® IIoT platform running on AWS infrastructure with a native device connection from the ICP DAS gateway. Exosite's Murano platform provides excellent management over cloud security for encryption and authorization.
As long as customers use the standard Modbus protocol, ICP DAS's IIoT edge gateway it can connect with the ExoSense solution. Once connected, the gateway can immediately begin sending data to the cloud platform for remote control and monitoring in various industrial applications, enabling users to view dashboards with real-time data and equipment status, as well as receive notifications, manage user access, and generate reports. The primary function of the gateway is to connect edge devices with the Internet and act as a bridge between devices and the cloud. These features are a big differentiator when compared with standard SCADA systems.
Remote monitoring is an effective system for optimizing production in various industries. It also helps reduce equipment downtime and improve quality. However, developing such a system can be challenging. Because of this, ICP DAS has leveraged Exosite's technologies to provide customers with an end-to-end IoT solution: ExoSense. ICP DAS has chosen to partner with Exosite because of its established and trusted brand in the IIoT market, providing end-to-end solutions, an enterprise software platform, and an extensive range of tools to make it easier to configure and deploy IoT applications.
Connection to the ExoSense solution is easy and does not require coding, eliminating the need for a software development team, large investments, or long development time. In response to the rapid development of IIoT technologies, ICP DAS is pleased to provide our customers with an easy-to-use solution to expand their IT infrastructure and enable OT data connectivity within their industrial applications. ExoSense is already available to their clients around the world. ExoSense looks forward to providing customers with the latest solutions that combine IIoT, cloud, and edge technologies.
Benefits:
User-configurable message priority Since one production line might have nearly a hundred kinds of machine failures, the customer can set the priority of the messages because the iKAN series displays support this function. In this case, the PLC is used to manage emergency situations when they occur. To the alarm message, that needs to be inserted and dialed first when the emergency situation occurs, will be given priority on the iKAN LED display so that management personnel can immediately check the status of the production line.
Multiple text function The iKAN series display provides storage space for 128 sets of regular text messages, 20 sets of emergency messages, as well as 7 text color options to distinguish the degree of urgency, which greatly improves the readability of messages.
Unlimited options to edit or insert messages at any time Messages can be easily edited through web browsers such as Google Chrome, Firefox or Safari on a computer or smartphone, and there are no limits on special control equipment and locations. Thus, it is possible to change the content of the message or insert an emergency message anytime, anywhere. An easy-to-use web-based operation interface makes it simple for management personnel to operate and control the machine.
Watchdog timer (WDT) function The WDT function allows management personnel to set the timeout between the iKAN and the PLC to search for lost communication. Once the disconnection is detected, the iKAN will automatically display a preset warning message. In addition, this function can help confirm the status between machines and iKAN, which allows immediately eliminate on-site problems, improve production line management efficiency, and reduce labor costs.
Fast data circulation In this case, with the help of ICP DAS‘s GW-7663 gateway module, the bus cycle of data exchange can be as fast as 1ms, allowing the quick update of the data from the controller and transmission to the iKAN small-sized industrial LED display via Modbus TCP.
Easy integration with network devices The GW-7663 gateway module helps controllers and devices that use the PROFINET protocol to convert data into the Modbus TCP communication protocol, which is, in turn, commonly used between industrial electronic devices. Through this connection can be achieved an integration of the IIoT.
ICP DAS’s gateways ICP DAS provides gateways that support a variety of communication protocols, including PROFINET, Modbus TCP/RTU, CANopen, DeviceNet, and others. Their increased degree of integration allows customers to share device data across software or networks in different industries. For example, the GW-7552 gateway module can be used to read the data on the access control card reader, making it convenient to check personnel’s entry and exit records through PROFIBUS to Modbus RTU/ASCII. Also, one of the industrial DeviceNet series products is the GW-7243D-G DeviceNet Slave to Modbus TCP/RTU/ASCII master gateway. It is used to monitor bottling line equipment in breweries. Through the DeviceNet to Modbus TCP/RTU/ASCII, an intuitive and customizable interface, it is convenient for customers to maintain the running equipment in the process.
Conclusion: With the ICP DAS‘s GW-7663 gateway module, the machine information can be transmitted to the iKAN series small-sized industrial LED display in real-time, improving the operator’s monitoring inconvenience. It can help avoid misreading the production data, improve information recognition, optimize the efficiency of production line management, reduce labor costs, and make the production process transparent.
In order to meet the requirements of different applications, ICP DAS provides a variety of gateways and solutions with appropriate communication interfaces and protocols. They can transmit data safely and reliably and achieve a high degree of integration of the IIoT. Process improvement has great benefits: getting equipment status information, failure prevention, and efficient assistance to customers to easily solve various problems in the application system in real-time.
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