Product category:
Automation, control software
News Release from: Hayes Control Systems | Subject: Beckhoff TwinCAT Backup software package
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 23 February 2004
Backup package returns plant to service
quickly
Backup software package enables users of PC-based automation systems to return their plant to service after a hardware failure in the shortest possible time, and with a minimum of user input.
The new Beckhoff TwinCAT Backup software package, which is exclusively available in the UK from Hayes Control Systems, has been specifically designed for users of PC-based automation systems It enables them to return their plant to service after a hardware failure in the shortest possible time, and with a minimum of user input
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 30 Apr 2007 at 8.00am (UK)
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Hayes Control Systems are offering training courses for Beckhoff products based on TwinCAT IEC61131 software, covering PLC, Motion Control and linking data to third party MS Windows applications.
In addition to storing programs, recipes and process data, TwinCAT Backup also stores all of the information required to set up a replacement PC.
This includes, for example, the PC name and user information, the configuration of the network to which the PC is connected, and the fieldbus card settings.
This enables the new machine to be set up quickly and accurately, ready for immediate operation, with little or no input from the user.
Further reading
Control and plant monitoring system
Rizla, a UK supplier of cigarette papers, is using Beckhoff industrial PCs, supplied by Hayes Control Systems, for a demanding control and plant monitoring system throughout its Pontypridd plant.
PC and PLC form a DIN rail unit
With the CX series of Embedded PCs, Beckhoff has combined PC technology and modular I/O level to form a DIN rail unit in the control cabinet.
Beckhoff training courses in 2007
Hayes Control Systems continue to offer training courses for Beckhoff products based on TwinCAT IEC61131 software.
Though superficially similar results can be achieved with a disk-image backup, TwinCAT Backup offers many benefits.
In particular, disk images can only be transferred between machines with identical configurations.
With TwinCAT Backup, however, the replacement PC can have different fieldbus cards, and even a different operating system.
Within practical limits, these differences are automatically catered for, which means that users no longer have to stock multiple spare PCs which are identical to those which they have in service, and they no longer have to worry about the availability of PCs with obsolete configurations to use as replacements.
TwinCAT Backup is compatible with all types of backup media, including disks, USB memory sticks and network drives.
Backups can be performed automatically using a scheduler, or can be performed manually, as required.
Incremental backups are supported, minimising the time taken by regular backup procedures.
In addition to its primary use as a backup tool, Beckhoff TwinCAT Backup from Hayes Control Systems also offers a convenient method of installing program updates, or software related to configuration changes, on industrial PC systems.
Once again, it can be used in this way without the need for specialist knowledge on the part of the person carrying out the installation, making it a powerful distribution tool for software enhancements.
For those wishing to test for themselves the functionality and power of the Beckhoff TwinCAT software package, a demonstration version can be downloaded free-of-charge from the Beckhoff website (www.beckhoff.com), where further information about the package can also be found.
Hayes Control Systems is the leading UK expert in the design and supply of complete automation solutions based on open-architecture PC technology.
The company is the exclusive UK and Ireland distributor for Beckhoff, whose products include fieldbus-independent input/output systems, industrial PCs, and soft programmable controllers which use standard PC hardware, and which can also provide sophisticated motion control functions.
In all of its product areas, Hayes Control Systems champions an open-systems approach, which avoids the technical limitations, high costs and restricted availability associated with proprietary equipment.
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