Omron has announced a new generation of programmable controllers in Japan which, it says, are 20 times faster than its previous models, as well as having more memory and being quicker to program. The Sysmac CJ2 controllers have built-in multifunction Ethernet ports compatible with EtherNet/IP.
The new controllers (above) can process ladder instructions in just 1µs, compared to 20µs for earlier Omron controllers. The largest versions have a program capacity of 400k steps (1.6 times more than Omron’s previous largest capacity) and a data memory of 832k words (twice as much as before). They are also said to be faster at executing special instructions, such as floating-point mathematics, as well as offering higher I/O refresh speeds.
Omron says that using the new PLCs will cut design times because the screen data and PLC programming can be developed in parallel with improved access to the CPU’s memory via EtherNet/IP.
Omron is hoping to sell about 3,000 of the new controllers a year.
• Omron has also announced a range of EtherNet/IP communications interfaces for its CS/CJ series of PLCs which, it claims, can communicate 30 times faster than its previous systems, with a data capacity that is nine times larger.
