Author Topic: Using a Tablet on the FX series  (Read 5989 times)

Lorne Van Dusen

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Using a Tablet on the FX series
« on: October 18, 2017, 09:42:07 AM »
I have a general question and I am open to any suggestions either from tech support or any other users.
My company wants to start using tablets in place of hand held text displays to be able to change value in the DM'S as well as to view the I/O online.
At this point I have chosen a Windows based tablet over an Android one as I felt it would be better for some things and it comes with Windows 10.
What way would someone suggest it be connected to the PLC? Some of the PLC'S will be connected to a router and therefor can be connected either via the web or by the wireless on the router. However a lot of them will not be connected to the outside world.
So I am guessing that the over all best way is to connect it to the serial port then have TLserver running on the tablet.
Open to any suggestions.

support

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Re:Using a Tablet on the FX series
« Reply #1 on: October 20, 2017, 05:45:51 AM »
Two possibilities:

1) Your tablet may already come with (or you can buy one easily for Windows based tablet) an Ethernet connector (via USB or USB-C) and all you need to do is to assign your tablet's Ethernet port with a static IP address as well as a static IP address on the PLC (both should be on the same subnet. E.g. PLC=192.168.1.5, tablet=192.168.1.10). Now it is essentially plug and play using a standard network CAT5 cable with RJ45 plugs on both ends. You can either run i-TRILOGI to program the PLC, or run a browser webpage with content loaded from the PLC's web pages that you have preloaded into the PLC.  You can of course always write a Visual C, Visual Basic, or Java program to create a custom software interface for your PLC and communicate with it via the Ethernet port. That software will run on your tablet directly.

2) Since you have a Windows tablet you can easily connect a USB-RS232 or USB-RS485 (U-485 http://www.triplc.com/u485.htm) to the PLC's RS232 or RS485 port. That way you can run TLServer and use i-TRiLOGI to program the PLC. You may not be able to run browser webpage from the PLC, unless the webpages are loaded into the TLServer web file space.  

If you adopt solution 2), then most likely you want to write a custom GUI in C, C# etc to communicate with the PLC via the serial port. Your program of course need a way to either recognize the COM port number or let user select the COM port from drop down menu and memorize it. Thereafter it is more or less plug and play as well.

« Last Edit: October 20, 2017, 05:49:30 AM by support »
Email: support@triplc.com
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Lorne Van Dusen

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Re:Using a Tablet on the FX series
« Reply #2 on: October 20, 2017, 06:37:03 AM »
I appreciate they very descriptive reply.
I am guessing that I will have to use option 2 as not all PLC'S will be connected to a router however all of the PLC'S have their IP address set to 0.0.0.0 to allow them to accept an IP address from the router.
Looks like I have a lot of work ahead of me.