Baby Do-More

[jwbaker3]

I know you cant say when but, do you think I will be able to vote for the new baby Do-More as new product of the year next year? It's been a while and I prefer to program in DMD vs DS6. Some customers allowed us to used the DL06 (when they see the price difference) in a lot of stand-alone smaller machines that are not part of the plant communications network, even if they are die hard AB, Siemens or GEIP. We are replacing a lot of older hardware that had SLC 100's, 150's and 500's (The lifecycle status for the all of the SLC's are Active Mature, End of life of discontinued). There are some times that the DL06 will not fit the need and we use a Micrologix but I am hoping that the baby Do-More will fill the gap displacing the Micrologix and the DL06.

JW

[BobO]

Yes, I fully expect it to be product of the year for 2016.

[ATU]

Baby DoMore? Hmmmm... going to run with that one?

[BobO]

Baby DoMore? Hmmmm... going to run with that one?

Going to? No. Already running...hard.

[Controls Guy]

I think he may have meant with "Baby Do-More" as a name.

[BobO]

Ah. I can say with high confidence that is not the name.

[jwbaker3]

I really don't care what you call it. I am glad it will be out soon! (Ok maybe Junior Do-More) 

JW

[davidbgtx]

How about Do-More Mini? I also like the idea.

[BobO]

The platform actually won't be called Do-more at all. Do-more is a control technology...a retargetable engine and programming environment...not a platform. The DM1 is the first generation CPU target of the Do-more engine, which has been released for DL205 and Terminator platforms. The new platform will have a name independent of Do-more, because we'd like to be able to use the I/O for other unrelated things, but the primary purpose is to be another DMx controller and associated I/O.

We are also kicking around the idea of doing a highly simplified version of Do-more that could be pushed all the way down into a smart relay class controller, but we'll see.

[jwbaker3]

So will (Junior or DM07  ) still use DMD to program it?

[BobO]

So will (Junior or DM07  ) still use DMD to program it?

Absolutely.

Our basic belief is that programming a Do-more controller should be much like programming C++ or Java or whatever. You learn a language and development environment and that remains constant for all targets. You should not need to learn a new language/instruction set/development environment for every platform, and the instruction set should remain as close as possible across all platforms. Each platform may have modules or features that require additional instruction support, but the core set is always the same. When we add new instructions to the core set, existing controllers get updates that include those features.

If we do the highly simplified version I mentioned, it would still be fundamentally Do-more, and although the instruction set would be greatly pared back, it would still be the same environment and the app will directly port to full Do-more without modification.

When we started thinking about the problem years ago, a question I would ask is: "What do you call the DL05 instruction set? OK, so how does that relate to the DL105, DL06, DL230/240/250/260, DL350, DL430/440/450, etc?" The point was that although the instruction set was essentially the same, there was a significant range across those platforms, and there was really no identity of the control technology. We tended to say "DL instruction set", but that really didn't answer it. We heard customers refer to the "DirectSoft PLC", which also isn't true. When we started this, we wanted the control technology to have a brand independent of platform, and we wanted our users to know that their investment in training and app development was protected long term. Platforms will come and go, but Do-more should remain as constant as possible.

[Mike Nash]

We are also kicking around the idea of doing a highly simplified version of Do-more that could be pushed all the way down into a smart relay class controller, but we'll see.

Smart Relay Class is possibly a bad thing to call it. If it's Do-more type programming it's not what I have seen in smart relays which tend to scan column by column rather than left to right, top to bottom. They are hateful things in my book.

[Controls Guy]

Hear, hear!  Maybe call it the "(Actually) Smart Relay".

[BobO]

Smart Relay Class is possibly a bad thing to call it. If it's Do-more type programming it's not what I have seen in smart relays which tend to scan column by column rather than left to right, top to bottom. They are hateful things in my book.

We won't. I just used that for reference since the mechanical design would likely look very similar to existing smart relay devices.

[deep6ixed]

I will say that smart relays do fill a niche role.  I don't use them here, but I've been in a few of our other plants that use that style of controller.  Any more at our shop, any project that uses more than a few relays and a timer or counter gets a Click.  It's small enough to fit in most places we need it and the reliability is good. 

My boss always used to give me a ration every project about "It's a simple project just a timer, counter and a few switches, why a PLC"  Now he's asking me every time we do simple upgrades about using the click.