Differences between all DCS
Hello,
I am trying to identify in a nutshell what are the differences between ABB's DCS (Symphony, 800xA, others).
Thanks
Voted best answer
Hello MGT,
There are many ABB DCS and all of them are different one way or the other.
Three main active systems are:
Symphony Plus is a big, full-blown DCS for power and water industries.
800xA is another big system for more or less every possible application with capabilities for migration of every heritage ABB system to it.
Freelance is a DCS for smaller aplications with much different architecture from both above systems and emphasizing ease of use.
For more info on all of them see our website:
http://new.abb.com/control-systems
Hope this helps,
Mike
Answers
As has been mentioned beforehand, ABB has many DCS's and also PLC's. Defining the difference between them would be a difficualt exercise given the complexity with each system. Also I'd like to diginguish between the HMI layer and the control layer. In this I am looking only at the control layer, as the HMI could be same for each. These are the DCS's ABB currently supports: Net90/Infi90/Harmony/SymphonyPlus (the old Bailey system in its various forms), DCI sys 6, Melody, Satt, Freelance, Advant Master (and Master), MOD300, AC800M, AC500. These are the main families (there are more). I guess if we categorise these in small, medium, large then you would have: Large - Melody, Harmony/SymPlus, AC800M; Med - Harmony/SymPlus, AC800M, DCI, MOD and Advant; Small: AC800M, Freelance, AC500.
800xA is a family also but is made up of all the above (as a HMI) plus the AC800M controller.
This discussion can go on longer given familiarity of the all the above systems, which no single person generally has.
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