Home Lab Project: Interview Worthy?
Hi, I have been working on this project for the past month and figured I'll share to see if it's worth mentioning or demonstrating at interviews.
It is a virtualized MHS, with a PnP stacking pallets and 4 cranes loading and unloading said pallets.
Programmed almost entirely in ST using CoDeSys
I used Ignition for the visualization, controls and logging.
Setup and architecture:
PC1. Ethernet IPV4 - 192.168.1.201
WiFi IPV4 - 10.0.0.201
Contains Ignition Gateway, CoDeSys runtime and IDE and Factory IO. All three communicate over OPC UA.
PC1 is used for programming the PLC, hosting Ignition gateway and running the equipment on Factory IO.
There are RFID readers for writing and reading pallet metadata through the warehouse. The data from these are sent to the SQL database
PC2. Ethernet IPV4 - 192.168.1.200
WiFi IPV4 - 10.0.0.182
Contains Ignition Maker Designer, MySQL workbench and database for logging and Papercut for email server.
PC2 is connected to PC1 via Ethernet and is used for Perspective sessions via HTTP, designing the UI and hosting the SQL database and email server. Email server is used for alarm notifications. Database is used for logging pallet metadata as it is routed from PnP to crane load and unload station.
Tablet (HMI), connected to PC1 and 2 over WiFi via my home router.
Tablet web browser is used as the client for the Ignition Perspective session. Users will login and have different viewing experiences depending on role.
There are Auto/Manual modes, loading and unloading, and system recovery in case of faults. There's also a semi-safety circuit
Please, let me know what information I need to provide or offer guidance as to what to add/remove to make this worthy.
Here's some screenshots and a video of the "warehouse" in action.
Main issue I have is that PC1 is running so slow with all of the stuff on it. I'm considering removing the last two AS/RS cranes.
ABOUT ME: Engineer who used to be a controls tech and now wants to go back to automation/SCADA and just got my Ignition Core certification last year.
Edit: can't upload videos and photos at the same time