IDEC Corporation MicroSmart FC6A Plus PLC

IDEC Corporation has released its MicroSmart FC6A Plus, a PLC with up to 2060 local I/O. With its expanded I/O capacity, the FC6A Plus is said to be able to control and monitor the largest machines or entire small-scale manufacturing facilities.

Basic instructions can be executed at a speed of 21 ns and program memory is 800 kB (100k steps). These features, along with a large data memory, allow the product to handle large programs with complex control requirements such as PID, flow totalisation and recipes.

Two models are available: a 16 I/O model and a 32 I/O model. Each model includes a 0–10 VDC analog input with 12-bit resolution. Each can accommodate up to three plug-in discrete, analog, serial or Bluetooth cartridges. Each discrete cartridge has four I/O points, either four inputs or four outputs. Each analog cartridge has two analog I/O points, either two inputs or two outputs.

Up to 63 I/O expansion modules can be added, providing the ability to handle up to 2060 I/O with a maximum of 511 analog I/O.

The Bluetooth wireless communication adapter allows the monitoring of the PLC and transfer of programs from any device with Bluetooth capability. FTP communication is also available, as well as full-featured app access for iOS or Android.

All models have two built-in Ethernet ports, and optional plug-in cartridges can create additional RS232C/RS485 ports (up to 33 ports). The PLC’s Ethernet port supports the Modbus TCP protocol and the serial port supports the Modbus RTU protocol.