The Industrial Raspberry Pi Forum

Hi there,

I work in a manufacturing facility and we want to begin our digitalisation journey but are unsure how to get the data off the machine to start with! I am a digital engineer and have experience with connectivity using python opcua-tools, however, the machines in this place all have older versions of software which don't have opcua enabled. In order to get a valid license the software would need to be upgraded at a cost of £5k at least. Also, to note, all the controllers are Siemens 840Dsl S7-300s and we don't have Siemens TIA portal or Step7 nor access to the source code. I was wondering if this is where one of the RevolutionPis come in? I have read as much as I could find and watched YouTube videos of Kunbus and the RevolutionPi but it seems as though they only work if you have TIA Portal or Step 7 already installed, or any Siemens software, which we don't have. We upload the programs to the machine and then run them, that's it.

I thought that perhaps a Revolution Pi with Profinet connection would establish some form of connectivity and then I could somehow figure out how to convert the profinet information to human readable format in order to gain insights. Am I right in believing (and moreso hoping!!) that Revolution Pi could be a viable solution here?

I look forward to receiving a response even if it is to tell me that the RevPi will only work if there already is Siemens software manager or TIA or Step7 available.

Becs.

Hello Becs,
step7 and TIA-portal are not supported by us. Our Basic devices can communicate with other Profinet devices and for this you need a modular device. For your case, a modular gateway PROFINET IRT would be suitable.
To find out how our RevPi base module works with the modular gateway, just look here.

Best Regards

Ulrich Kouatang Biakoup | Technical Support

Thank you u.biakoup. That second link you provided don't seem to work; however I have googled it and am reading some resources on it.
Are there any user videos that you may have which show how industry uses your devices? I have been stung a number of times in the past with companies who have stated that their devices can do all that we want but haven't declared the need for knowledge on the datablock addressing etc. We literally know nothing in this factory, except how to run the machines, write G-code and upload programs. What the data block addressing is or anything else, is non-existent.

From what I have read so far, it is still unclear to me if it is as simple as plug and play or if (and what) prerequisite knowledge is required. Can you help or point me in the direction of where I can find the answers before we buy anything?

Hello,
There is the second link again https://kunbus-gmbh.atlassian.net/servi ... 2843508848.
We have some tutorials about GW PROFINET IRT but with CODESYS
see here.

Best Regards

Ulrich Kouatang Biakoup | Technical Support