New Product Idea: Separate High Speed Input and Output Cards

[arkeele]

We currently use Do-more PLCs and are considering BRX as well.

On both platforms, it would be nice to have separate high speed input and high speed output cards.  For our applications, we typically use a lot of high speed inputs but very few high speed outputs (encoders mostly but also an application where we are monitoring inputs from 30+ photoeyes). 

For one particular application, we need 32 high speed inputs and no high speed outputs.  With the BRX, that means buying 4 cards and having 32 unused outputs (I'm not counting the built in high speed io you can get on the base unit).  It sure would be nice to get by with 2 16-point high speed input cards.

[BobO]

We currently use Do-more PLCs and are considering BRX as well.

On both platforms, it would be nice to have separate high speed input and high speed output cards.  For our applications, we typically use a lot of high speed inputs but very few high speed outputs (encoders mostly but also an application where we are monitoring inputs from 30+ photoeyes). 

For one particular application, we need 32 high speed inputs and no high speed outputs.  With the BRX, that means buying 4 cards and having 32 unused outputs (I'm not counting the built in high speed io you can get on the base unit).  It sure would be nice to get by with 2 16-point high speed input cards.

What what high speed function are you using with the inputs? There are 8 physical inputs, but only 4 logical counters. We would have loved for there to be more, but we were out of gate array resources.

It would be fairly easy to build what you are describing, at least on the input side. Not sure how much market potential there is though. Unfortunately it often comes back to ROI.

[arkeele]

Mainly quaduature encoders, with Z-phase, so we are using the A, B, and C channels for those.  Would be nice to be able to get 4 encoders on a single card instead of just two.

The other application is a measuring application using a single encoder and 31 photoeyes.  Basically we need to capture the encoder count and photoeye state any time any of the eyes change state.