Hello, my wishlist:
- Curve belt conveyors (not only corner)
- Parametrized length of conveyors
- Parametrized shape and weight of boxes
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- A Roll up Door would be great.
- A bigger hall
- more IOs
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Hello,
My current wish list revolves around use cases from a cybersecurity aspect of things.
I would love to see additional scenes that encompass the following if possible:
- Water Treatment Facilities
- Chemical Plants
- HVAC and building control systems
- Gas Turbines
From the current scenes present I have certain feature requests that allow customization of the Water tank scenario:
- overflowing liquid tank animation
- customization of the liquid color
- a drain pipe that could lead to a drain tank where the liquid could accumulate
- if the previous scenario stated is implemented, different color liquids mix in the drain tank causing a resultant color of liquid being reflected
Hope this is descriptive enough!
Thanks for creating this awesome product!
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Why not an AGV to transport the pallets where you want in the factory.
Control: digital forward, backward, left, right, lift and analog speed
Back: X and Y position in the factoryâŚ
For the Stacker Crane and Rack an encoder mode like the pallet conveyors, for X and Z
I find the tank a bit limited, add other function like a possibility to simulate temperature control.
A pump element would also be great to go with it
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Btw, that is a thing that bugged me the most about the stacker crane and the roboters.
Why do I send a 0-10V signal and get a 0-10V signal? I normally would send these the exact position in increments or a relative position, and they would position according to that. And for the same they send me back their position either as increments or as relative positions. Why do we have to convert to and from an analogue signal?
On a similar note: Why do many machines not offer a âposition reachedâ but rather a âmovingâ signal? That way I always have to program it so that I check if I was moving and now have come to a halt to know if my position is reached. And because I donât have a âposition leftâ or âposition rightâ feedback, I need to then wire it together with my signal that I send the machine. That imho doesnât make sense.
@brunovgr Is this something that is getting changed with the big update or were you unaware of this?
@wayneschaefer Do you feel similarly?
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I thought it was just my lack of experience with the moving signal. I find it difficult to use the moving signal in certain scenarioâs. At work (I am not a software engineer, I am a service tech) we use reed switches at the end of travel. So I am used to that and just thought the moving signal might have been a more elegant solution which was beyond my understanding. 
Nah, we also only check end positions. Because yeah, knowing that it is moving is not really relevant if you want to know the position.
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I understand where you are going here but I may be the odd one out since I like the variety presented by the factory equipment. From a teaching perspective, I have discussions with my students about how to work with the tools you are given as some OEMs do the oddest things with controls systems. For example, not having advanced and returned switches certainly is not ideal, however, I can also require students to add them so they can detect position at power-up. They learn to be more creative thinkers instead of always wanting solutions to be easy, so to speak. The lack of direct realism presents challenges that I find useful ⌠at least for how I am using the software anyway.
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I see your point. It depends on what you want to achieve in the end. I think with the ability to add our own models this will all change a bit.
I have to say though, that not having end position switches for me is just design that is not according to industry standards. And while you work around this with your students, others might get a wrong impression on how it âshould be doneâ, if such a âhow it should be doneâ is even existing or relevant.
I am curious though what went into this design decision.
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Since Factory I/O was designed to replace our old product ITS PLC Professional Edition, we had to make it compatible with Advantech USB-4750 DAQ boards. Due to the low number of I/O points available in this DAQ (16 inputs and 16 outputs) we decided to reduce the number of I/O points required to control machines in order to offer scenes with interesting complexity - at the time this seemed like a good idea. This is the reason why some parts have moving sensors and embedded controllers (stacker crane platform for instance). Although we were aware that we werenât following common industrial practices, this looked the best way to get around the limitation on the number of I/O points.
In the next big update we are discontinuing the Parts Configuration concept (Digital / Analog, âŚ). Each machine will include I/O points that can be enabled/disabled depending on how you want to control it, or part of it. This approach will allow us to include all the typical I/O points you expect to find in a machine without sacrificing simplicity and compatibility with the current version of Factory I/O (@wayneschaefer). Limit switches are included (@janbumer1, @earthmonkeys)!
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Hey Bruno
I hope you had a happy Easter!
Thanks for this update on where the future of Factory I/O will be heading and thank you on providing insight on how the current system of âweirdâ switches came to be!
Iâm more and more looking forward to that next update. From what it sounds like the update will overhaul major aspects of this great product and will make it better in many aspect.
Iâm waiting to finally be able to try out this update!
Thank you to you and the team for the continued support and development, especially through the last two years who havenât been easy on many of us!
Best of all!
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Hi Bruno,
It makes sense how you explain it. There is always a good reason for these things.
I also look forward to the next update, it sounds interesting. Thanks for the explanation and for a great package.
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Hello,
As Iâm working Factory I/O with PLCSim, Iâve found the documentation regarding the communication between them relatively scarce. I was trying to make PLCSim work without errors by adding some I/O modules, and it took me a long time to realize where the problem was, and it was related to the function given in the template for TIA Portal. It might be that I am too newbie for this, but I think that some documentation would be handy. Thank you.
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- Stop Blade - back / front limit indication
- possibility to separate boxes which are one by one on conveyor
- sensor with distance detection (as analog)
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Yeah, we need end limit switches in general, instead of the current âmovementâ feedback. Iirc they are overhauling a lot of parts tho.
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Process control
- Piping
- valves
- pumps
- Instrumentation
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Regarding camera scenario, we have Orbit, Fly and First person camera, I hope we can add ď˝ 4th camera, as like real person mode.
the control function as below:
- Control an specify operator moving around the plant
- Can do jumping, squatting and other behaviors
- Can operate machine equipment and control panel, such as pressing a button and turn on/off select switch
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SDK to import my own objects for scenes. I have students that write 3D games that could create and test these objects to add to library.
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Iirc it is planned that in the future we can provide our own 3D models.
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Use of 3D glasses to work in Virtual Reality and/or Augmented Reality mode, kind of what ABB RobotStudio can do with its environments. The best option would be VR as in MoVAR - ABB RobotStudio in VR - YouTube but AR is also a good to have ( ABB RobotStudioÂŽ Augmented Reality - YouTube )
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