My question here is … how is this functionality organized or setup?
I’m new to the Factory I/O system and investigating a purchase of it.
I need to know more about this classroom setup.
Hi - I just finished a trial of Factory with my students. Because of some internal matters, I used separate laptops to run the simulation software although it would have been cleaner using computers with dual monitors. Because our PLCs were already networked interfacing was easy. I just used the canned scenes for programming and troubleshooting exercises. The student were very receptive to the simulation software and felt it enhanced their learning.
1 Like
Thanks.
In this trial, did you install a purchased version of Factory I/O on each laptop?
Or did you use the 30days free version and had it installed on each laptop?
If each laptop had its own version of Factory I/O, I still don’t recognize the simultaneously teaching aspect of it. How do you envision this?
I have a classroom equiped with about 15 desktops and a few laptops. For now it looks like the desktops are not meeting the hardware and/or software requirements to run Factory I/O.
So I’m looking for a solution to “teach this whole classroom simultaneously”.
For the trial I requested a 90 day trail for 8 laptops - FactoryIO was very agreeable to this. Each student had their own copy of FactoryIO to work with.
As for simultaneous teaching, I feel the software is best used in a lab environment where each student is working on their own project. I suppose you could use one computer and a projector to walk through writing a program for one of the simulation scenes but I think having the students work through the problem on their own (with educator assistance) is the best.
The program put a high load on the computer’s graphic recourses. On one of the laptops I tried, the GPU was max’ed out and everything ran excruciatingly slow.
1 Like
Thnx for the update. And the details.
The 90-days trial period was indeed pretty generious of them.
And good to know that it supported your trial.
I’m looking for the unlimited solution for the classroom and the students.
The student desktops, we have here onsite, can’t run FIO due to CPU and GPU that aren’t meeting the FIO hardware-requirements
But I can still use those desktops as programming tools for the PLC- and DCS-systems we have. And that’s we we’re doing at the moment.
For the students the programming of PLC- and DCS-systems is the main focus of the training.
So I have to workout the system setup with either multiple FIO scenes on a single desktop/laptop or single FIO scenes on multiple desktops/laptops.
Ideas or suggestions or …… even questions, feel free!
All our systems run on one computer with dual monitors and dual NIC so we can separate the PLC Network from the School Network. Must systems run well enough to achieve a min 12fps video rate even while monitoring the PLC with either Rockwell or Siemens programming tools. Controlio also works nicely if you don’t have a PLC option available.
1 Like
Thanks Wayne for the additional info.
I still need to decide how I can setup the system in our classroom.
As I need to interface with Siemens LOGO!, Siemens S7-1212C, ABB AC500 and ABB 800xA (DCS).
1 Like
In one setup, we have a Control Logix PLC Rack with a some Real I/O and networking capabilities. Another option use a Siemens 1200 series PLC and Comfortsoft HMI in a briefcase similar to the one I show in my videos. I have posted some material on this forum and also on my website and YouTube Channel (no promos, adverts or other monetization). … Click Here → Wayne’s Portfolio and look under the Simulation Tab.
It looks like the Siemens LOGO & S7 PLC have drivers available. For the ABB PLC & DCS you could use an OPC server for communications. If for some reason that does not work, you could use back to back I/O. Ex. FIO divers → LOGO I/O → ABB equipment I/O
2 Likes
Thanks. At this moment we’re looking into the ABB OPC server capabilities.
1 Like