Comments on another day another vice another roll of the dice: Python in Industial Automation

I abandoned my efforts to make industrial automati...

2011-10-12T01:04:26.270-07:00

I abandoned my efforts to make industrial automation more open. It is an interesting task that is hard to pursue without additional support to access the hardware and find time for research. I believe Android has a lot of potential with its ADK, but in Python world there still should be some syndicate to push the progress. I think PSF could gather corporate sponsors to organize around their specific Python problems to make it more fun for community.

As for Siemens S7, it is certainly possible to use Python ctypes module to gain easier access through libnodave, but I doubt that it is possible to create an equivalent in Python due to the closed nature of Siemens protocols. This, however, didn't stop Stuxnet.

Hi, I'm going to develop my own Python SCADA ...

2011-10-12T00:39:47.920-07:00

Hi,

I'm going to develop my own Python SCADA system. I need to communicate a Linux OS with a S7-300 by Ethernet. So, I want to use libnodave. Did you get the python libnodave equivalent?

Thank you,

José M.

I've ended up in the process automation world ...

2011-06-14T05:17:09.375-07:00

I've ended up in the process automation world coming from the 'open' webworld. I'm totally agree with you about the lack of good open tools. So i'm currently hacking away creating solutions using whatever open tools I can find.

What are the current developments? Did anything change the past few years? what do you think about opc-ua and how to connect that with python?

Hi,

Many thanks for your work.
I need so...

2009-03-19T12:53:00.000-07:00

Hi,

Many thanks for your work.
I need some help to create .py modules from c-files using swig.
I have been reading swig manual, but I don't know how I can use 'libnodave' in my own python application to read and write data from Siemens S7-200 PLC via CP243-1 ethernet module on Windows XP OS.

I hope you can help me.

Best Regards,
László Révész

Thanks for response. Sorry that the post is not fi...

2008-09-28T12:02:00.000-07:00

Thanks for response. Sorry that the post is not finished. I pushed a wrong button in a hurry instead of saving it in drafts. I'll update it in a few days with additional chapter on using Python ability to call C libraries for direct access to PLC. There also will be an example of truly minimalistic cross-platform wxWidgets interface.

Yep, the software is dangerous as long as there is insufficient number of reviews from various parties. Owning a software product and maintaining its source top secret doesn't add anything to reliability, but makes it easier to hide flaws and keep your business running. Tremendous amount of resources wasted on marketing campaigns in automation solutions market to promote the software that doesn't really deserve the buzz. I mentioned Google for a reason and I believe that their attitude is a good alternative to be introduced in Industrial Automation world. But as long as investors are only automation software vendors this is unlikely to happen.

To make this big marketing machine move in alternative direction there still must be financial power to start and support the efforts. Existing practice of committees, boards and associations will not change the situation. Only independent organization could provide the force to open Industrial Software world for true collaboration over the tools that are up to date, pleasant to look and to work with to make the difference in reliability, maintenance and constant improvement of technology. These tools could be made better by joint efforts of manufacturing enteprises themselves to be easily adopted to their needs by their own teams. Tools that will introduce the best practices and not only ready to use products. The organization behind should do a lot of research and development work that will allow people make their choice reasonably instead of enforcing own standards. This will contribute back to open source world as well.

Excellent insight. I fully agree with your comment...

2008-09-26T20:03:00.000-07:00

Excellent insight. I fully agree with your commentary on both past and future. As far as I'm concerned, present day Open Source Industrial Control software, including: drivers, OPC software, HMI/SCADA applications, etc, are dangerous for critical real world applications. However, I'm a huge open source proponent, hoping that it gets to a point where Open Source/Free/Very Cheap and standardized industrial software beats the big vendors hands down.

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Nathan Boeger
http://notanotherindustrialblog.blogspot.com