June 25, 2013 - SotPLCs Smart SoftPLC and Smart Gateway products now support up to (2) channels of Allen-Bradley Data Highway Plus (DH+) protocol. This interface provides the lowest cost, most comprehensive connectivity to A-B DH+ on the market. A Smart Gateway can provide customers with a smooth upgrade of HMI's and other devices that need to communicate to A-B PLC's on a DH+ network, but have no DH+ interface. Smart Gateways provide numerous modern Ethernet, serial and fieldbus protocols for the HMI, driver or other device. The Smart Gateway then communicates over DH+ to the A-B PLC's seamlessly.
No changes are required to the existing cabling, A-B PLC's, the A-B PLC programming, or other devices on the DH+. A Smart SoftPLC can not only perform the Gateway function, but can also control A-B Remote I/O. Users can upgrade existing A-B PLC systems without replacing or re-wiring the I/O or changing the DH+ network wiring! , By exchanging the obsolete, limited functionality A-B PLC with a Smart SoftPLC, users get a modern, supportable controller CPU and have a low cost migration path for future upgrades of the communication network and I/O. Users can even re-use most (and many times all) of the existing logic and program documentation with SoftPLC's automated application conversion utilities.
A Smart SoftPLC or Smart Gateway can support any mix of DH+, RIO Master, RIO Slave on (2) channels simultaneously.