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M580 Hot Standby Controller Overview

Modern redundant controller

Systems with hot standby controllers are usually designed and installed at sites where damage is unacceptable if the master controller fails

At such facilities, there are continuous explosion and fire hazardous technological processes associated with radiation or chemical hazards. These are energy or other facilities where interruptions in a continuous technological process can lead to large financial losses or danger to human lives.

You can read some information about reservation models (voting scheme in automated control systems) at the next presentation

In this article I will talk about the PLC from Schneider Electric - M580.

Modicon M580 Hot StandBy
 

A bunch of M580 controllers in the photo above allows you to create large control systems - up to 5000 I/O signals.

The M580 controller line is the next generation of PLCs, replacing the redundant Quantum line of controllers. It has an order of magnitude higher performance, expanded memory, smaller dimensions (using the chassis from the M340), fully hardware implementation of redundancy functions.

The Unity Pro XL v12 software, in my personal opinion, has no competitors at all - quality and thoughtfulness in the smallest details of implementation. A vivid example of how a manufacturer thinks about the needs of its integrators.

I will dwell on the positive aspects of this tool software that other brands do not have (TIA Portal, Step7, Codesys, etc.):

1. Quality Help. Being locked up during commissioning at a nuclear power plant, behind seven fences and with a laptop without the Internet, you clearly begin to understand how the quality and understandability of a software product affects labor costs during commissioning of any brand. This help file has an absolutely complete and exhaustive list of what may be required during the work. For example, I needed to unsolder a rare weight measurement module - I found it!

2. The software does not require a state of the art powerful computer. It is optimized for different operating environments and will work well on both Windows XP with Pentium II and Windows 10 with Pentium Core i7.

3. Software implementation. Can you imagine how many dry contacts can be placed on a Ladder Diagram (LD) programming sheet if 63 columns are allowed horizontally and 100 lines vertically? These are 630 cells for placing contacts or any other elements in them, and within the same scheme! Many such schemes can be made. Now imagine that in online mode you see visually where which contact is closed and which is open (online color scheme). Structured text is generally a perfectly crafted tool. There is no imposition of tabulation and hyphenation rules. If an error is made when writing the code, then immediately the place where the error was entered is underlined in red and, when hovered over, gives a hint what exactly the system did not like. All languages ​​are designed according to the IEC 611131 standard with small nice buns.

4. Software simulator. In fact, this is a full-fledged controller that visualizes the process in a high-quality manner. No freezes or messages that too many windows are open. The service is sufficient for debugging a SCADA application, that is, a network simulator operates without restrictions in the Modbus TCP server mode. Does not fulfill requests to the network.

5. Allows you to implement debugging screen forms, which can be used as a temporary means of a human-machine interface.

6. The boot sector is loaded into the controller by default. If you reboot the system even after minor changes, everything will be saved and will work.

7. Changes to the PLC program code can be corrected on the fly, without stopping the process (Online Build Changes).


Unity Pro XL. LD


Unity Pro XL. FBD


Unity Pro XL. ST
Unity Pro XL. Faceplate

What has noticeably changed in Unity v12, unlike previous versions 4,6,8,11:

1. It is no longer possible to assign custom names to derived Device DDT data types. Now the names are set automatically when creating devices.

2. The IO Scanner function is no longer in the options of the created communication connection, but in the DTM Browser. You need to add a Modbus Device and parameterize it in the same way.

I will try to explain exactly how the architecture of redundant controllers works by the example of making changes to the program codes of an existing installation. Suppose you are connected to a system with redundant controllers and are online, the computer is connected to the Primary controller. After making changes to the function block algorithm, it will be necessary to download the program to the controller. It is possible to download the program code to the controller completely, then the technological process will be stopped, you can use a quick online modification that allows you to update the software without interrupting the PLC and immediately see the changes.

Unity Pro XL. IO Scanner

The sequence of actions should be as follows:

1. Connect to the Primary (192.168.10.10) controller (A or B is assigned arbitrarily, the first (A) is the one that was previously powered).

2. Make adjustments to logical statements.

3. Click Build Changes. The lower diagnostic part of the screen will indicate that the software versions in the standby and primary controllers are different (Different).

4. The software of the Primary controller will be updated without interrupting its operation, while the Standby controller will fall offline due to the difference in versions (there will be a regular address transfer - the 11th will become 10m, the Standby PLC will take on the role of the Primary PLC). The message on the panel will be red "A-Run_Primary/B-STOP/DIFFERENT", as shown below:

Unity Pro XL. Diagnostics

After all edits:

5. Disconnect from the Primary controller.

6. Connect to the Standby offline (192.168.10.11) controller.

7. Download the application via connection and Download or via the Transfer Project from Primary to Standby PLC option.

8. After that, the message will change to Primary Run / Standby offline in the lower diagnostic part of the screen.

9. We transfer the Device DDT structure “ECPU_HSBY” to the table of displayed values ​​“Animation Table”. Change the value of "CMD_RUN_REMOTE" to 1, thereby activating the Standby PLC.

10. The message on the panel will be green "A-RUN_PRIMARY / B-RUN_STANDBY", that is, the reservation will be restored.

Unity Pro XL. Diagnostics

This figure describes the structure of the diagnostic and control variables needed to monitor the redundancy functions of the system.

Unity Pro XL. Device DDT

This figure describes the structure of the diagnostic and control variables needed to monitor the redundancy functions of the system.

An important document describing the architecture of the M580 redundant PLC system is described under the link: Modicon M580 Hot Standby System Planning Guide for Frequently Used Architectures.

NHA58880.03.pdf


#Hotstandby, #Redundancy, #SchneiderElectric, #M580, #Quantum

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