Controlling vacuum valves with EPICS

[Florian Feldbauer <florian@ep1.ruhr-uni-bochum.de>]

Hey all,

I'm working with EPICS now for several years to develop parts of the 
Detector Control System for
the PANDA experiment.
For our luminosity detector we need to control a small vacuum system.
I had a look at various talks from EPICS meetings to see, how others are 
building their control systems
and I have a question concerning this:
All the systems I have seen are using PLCs to control the valves of the 
system.

What is the advantage of a PLC for controlling the valves?
Why not using an EPICS IOC for direct control running on a realtime system?

I never worked on vacuum systems before, and our vacuum workshop here at 
Mainz
could not help me with this question.

Many thanks in advance for the help!

  Florian

--
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| Dr. Florian Feldbauer                |
|                                      |
| Helmholtz-Institut Mainz /           |
| Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz |
| Johann-Joachim-Becher-Weg 36         |
| D-55128 Mainz                        |
|                                      |
| Office: SB1 / 00-213                 |
| Phone:  (+49)6131 / 39-29608         |
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