Micro PLCs have embedded motion capabilities

Allen-Bradley Micro850 and Micro830 PLCs by Rockwell Automation have motion capabilities for up to three axes of motion and have embedded Ethernet ports for HMIs.

November 2, 2012

Rockwell Automation’s Allen-Bradley Micro850 and enhanced Micro830 PLCs feature embedded motion capabilities for up to three axes of motion, allowing them to support a wide range of applications.

The Micro850 micro PLC is equipped with the same form factor, plug-in support, instruction/data size and motion capabilities as the 24-pt and 48-pt Micro830 controllers, but with the added capabilities of Ethernet and expansion I/O. The Micro850 controller specifically targets the needs of OEMs and excels at stand-alone machine applications.

The Micro850 controller has an embedded Ethernet port for higher performance connectivity to human-machine interfaces (HMIs). The EtherNet/IP protocol with CIP Symbolic support is used for simplified Allen-Bradley PanelView Component HMI connectivity. Tags created while configuring the HMI screens can easily reference the variable names in the Allen-Bradley Micro800 program.

I/O flexibility in the Micro850 PLC is one of the keys to successfully minimizing the cost of a machine. With support for up to five plug-ins, OEMs can customize the functionality of the controller with additional I/O, special functions, and serial ports without increasing the size of the controller. If more I/O or higher-performance analog I/O is required, the Micro850 controller supports up to four 2085 expansion I/O modules, including high-density digital I/O and high-accuracy analog I/O, for a total of 132 digital I/O points.

The enhanced Micro830 (via a firmware and software upgrade) and Micro850 controllers support up to three motion axes using pulse output to stepper or servo drives. OEMs can use intuitive motion function blocks, including Home, Move Velocity, Move Absolute, and Move Relative to make single-axis moves easy. For applications where precise positioning is required at high speeds, the Touch Probe function block has special hardware to achieve exact-position registration.

Rockwell Automation

www.rockwellautomation.com