PiLab ESP32-P4 PLC/HMI OSS (Alpha)

[theoutfield]

I recently picked up an ESP32-P4 dev board from Waveshare for a PLC/HMI project that might be of interest to a few people.
https://www.amazon.ca/Waveshare-ESP32-P ... B0F2MP483W

I'm not affiliated with Waveshare in anyway and this is not an advertisement for a product. I am working on an Open Source PLC/HMI.

The P4 caught my eye a couple of weeks ago. I was planning on using a Pi 4/5 for my PLC/HMI project. When I realized that the P4 module was stacked with 16MB of flash and 32MB of RAM I decided to give it shot.

One of the goals of this project was to create a completely web based PLC/HMI edit and operate workflow served from an MCU or equivalent. I just started setting up the Github repo for the project. It consists of a Vite Vue3/Tailwind CSS single page web application served from the P4 and firmwire developed using the ESPRESSIF IDF framework. I have never used any ESP devices or IDF before.

I have developed a much bigger system similar to this that ran on Linux with a Windows HMI. I am currently more interest in designing a completely integrated device that boots in under 5 seconds. I have manage to get it working at an Alpha stage and decided to release early before it gets to big to understand. I have used AI extensively to help with writing boiler plate code (for good or bad). Part of the goal of the project is to try to utilize AI after the project is complete to quickly develop the scripts that run experimental hardware and small machines. So far I can say that it is a very capable device. I have an onboard digital IO of 16 inputs and 8 Output scanning at 1ms and the script loop time is 5ms. My use case is to have Ethernet connected I/O but that might not be what others want and the 16/8 is fairly good for a compact PLC.

I put together a simple screen recording of it running on YouTube https://youtu.be/MBs3DlIrDFY?si=VjGDVxLjWTygAL0i. It is Alpha stage so nothing is set in stone. I started a Github repo for the project with an MIT license as well https://github.com/OpenPiLab/pilab-esp32-p4-plc There isn't much in there yet but in the next few days I'll populate the repo. I know this isn't a really popular type of project but if anyone is interest give me a shout.

Cheers.