Every plant has one. A fault that shows up once a shift, sometimes once a week, and clears before anyone gets to the screen. The operator swears the machine stopped. Maintenance checks everything and finds nothing. Production wants an answer, and you've got nothing but a story about a light that blinked.
I'll be straight about this: tools that record signals already exist, and some are damn good. I'm an automation engineer, I use ibaPDA at work. It's pro gear, and it's paid. I'm not here to pretend I invented this.
TRACE came from a different problem. Sometimes you need to chase one specific fault, right now, out on the floor, and you don't have time for a heavy setup. Or you want to test something in the lab before you drag software out to the field. A full pro setup is overkill for that, and getting one approved and configured can take longer than the problem gives you.
So TRACE is a Windows app that records Allen-Bradley PLC signals. You set it up, let it record, and when the fault shows up, you play it back and see what the tags were doing. No guessing. You watch what actually happened.
No PLC on your desk? There's a simulation mode. You can mess around with recording and playback, or test your approach in the lab, before you ever touch the real line.
It's free. No account. It runs on your PC, and your plant data stays yours.
You can grab it at siganor.com. Try the simulation mode first. Next time that once-a-shift fault shows up, you won't just have a story. You'll have the recording.
I also built Siganor Search, same idea but for finding files on your PC. I'll write about that one next.
Top comments (0)