With the number of control systems available, why try PC based controls?  While there are many legitimate reasons to not use a PC as a control system, there are still compelling reasons to consider it.  If using PC’s for industrial controls were such a bad idea, why would so many industrial control products leverage PC’s in the design?  For example, many CNC control systems include a PC as the operator interface.  Most industrial operator interfaces are based around flat panel type PC’s.  Many of them run some version of Windows.  So, if it were such a bad idea, there probably wouldn’t be so many industrial control products using PC’s.

So, why use PC’s?  Some reasons?

• High quality development tools
• Processing Power
• Potential for reusable code
• Off-the-shelf software
• Potential for high quality, reliable code
• Connectivity
• Data management
• User base
• User interface