Any Windows CE devices that can replace PLCs?

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johannblake

Does anyone know if there are any companies producing stand-alone
Windows CE based "controllers" used for industrial applications? More
specifically, what I am looking for is a unit that contains the Windows
CE OS with possible support for CE .NET and the following:

* analog / digital inputs / outputs
* a display (at the minimum, a simple one line text display)
* a keybord input panel (not a computer keyboard)
* the ability to add expansion modules (more inputs/outputs and other
types of modules)

The unit must be rugged and designed for industrial purposes and should
be able to fit into some kind of rack or be designed to fit into a
panel cutout.. What I am looking for is something that could
potentially replace a PLC (programmable logic controller). Programming
in Visual Studio .NET in a language like C# or Visual Basic .NET is a
powerful solution that goes beyond typical ladder logic programming.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thank you
Johann Blake
 
Not sure if there are or not... but you could try COTS or some other type of
industry magazine and see what is in there. Advantech may also have some
smaller sized computers that have what you are looking for. If you are
looking for a replacement for a PLC that runs a production line I would do a
lot of research - you dont want your line to GPF on you! :-)
 
I can, at present, only give you an 'almost' on that. Look at
www.edasce.com. Our device is modular, has the data types that you're
talking about, is expandable (although not infinitely expandable), mounts on
a DIN rail, and is industrial. This device presently runs Windows CE 3, so
it doesn't support .NET CF development (and it's headless anyway, so
wouldn't support that, even if it ran CE 4 or 5), but we are working on more
full-featured devices that have display and keyboard capability and will use
the same I/O as the current unit.

Since you only want a little bit of a display, you might also look at adding
that via serial I/O (which the base EDAS CE supports). We have some small
terminal devices that work well for that, too, if you want a single-vendor
solution: http://www.instrument.com/oem-hmi-terminals.html. We have a
customer or two who uses this exact scheme for simple operator I/O.

Paul T.
 
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