ChiAha Edge: Live PLC Data, On Your Network

Q: What do I need on site?

A PLC and an Ethernet port. We bring the box, set up with the full stack.

Q: Does any data leave the plant?

No. The box stores data locally and needs no outbound connection. Results go only to the dashboards and brokers you point it at.

Q: Which PLCs does it work with?

Allen-Bradley over EtherNet/IP is in production use. Modbus TCP and MQTT are tested, and OPC UA is in progress.

Q: Does it work with ReliaSim?

Yes. ChiAha Edge can feed a ReliaSim® model live, so the model sees what the line is doing now, and send its results to your dashboards and MQTT broker. The live connection is ready to deploy on your systems.

Q: Do I need a live connection to use a simulation model?

No. Most design and capital questions are answered by a model built from your line’s stop history. The live connection adds the current state for decisions made during the shift.

What it does

What the line is doing now

A simulation model built from a line’s stop history answers design and capital questions. Some decisions are made shift to shift instead: what’s down right now, what’s sitting in the buffers, and which stop is worth fixing first today. ChiAha Edge reads the PLCs, stores the data on the plant floor, and passes it on, so the dashboards and the model see the line as it runs.

It can feed a ReliaSim® model live and send the model’s results back to Grafana and your MQTT broker. The live connection is ready to deploy on your systems. Digital twin vs simulation covers when a live connection is worth it.

Read time per tag<100 ms
Default poll1 s
Local retention7–30 days
Outbound connections required0

How it works

Plugged in, data in hours

No Windows licensing and no IT project.

We ship the box

An industrial box PC arrives set up with the full stack. It starts on boot and recovers from power loss on its own.

Plug it into your PLC

Wired Ethernet to the PLC on an isolated subnet, then power.

Data flows in hours

Every tag is checked before polling starts, so nothing fails silently. Readings land in a local time-series database and show up on dashboards served from the box.

Grafana dashboard showing live PLC readings, gauges and trend charts, served from the box on the plant network — Dashboards are served from the box, on your network.

Where it earns its keep

What the live data is for

A model that stays in step

Real stop events keep a simulation model matched to the line as it runs, instead of to last quarter’s averages.

Results on the dashboards you already use

Expected against actual throughput and the stops costing the most today, published to Grafana, Node-RED or anything that reads MQTT.

The stop log, captured cleanly

The same data becomes the time-to-failure and time-to-repair distributions a model needs. ReliaStats® fits them.

Write-back when you want it

The box can write values back to PLC tags, with each write confirmed.

Protocols

Talks to what’s already on your floor

Reads take under 100 ms, on a one-second poll by default. The local database keeps 7 to 30 days of data at about 10:1 compression.

Running on a plant floor today. The first field unit reads an Allen-Bradley CompactLogix: 32 active tags on a one-second poll, each read under 10 ms, with write-back to 6 PLC tags confirmed. It has been collecting production data on the floor since it was installed.

Protocol	Typical use	Status
EtherNet/IP	Allen-Bradley (CIP)	In production
Modbus TCP	Most PLCs and meters	Tested
MQTT	Subscribe to an existing broker, or publish results downstream	Tested
OPC UA	Newer PLCs	In progress

Your data

It stays on your network

PLC to database to dashboard, all local.

Air-gap capable

Wired Ethernet to the PLC on an isolated subnet, and optional WiFi for remote maintenance. It works fully offline.

No vendor tunnel

No outbound connections are required, and there’s no broker in somebody else’s cloud.

Your historian, your hardware

The data lives on the box on your floor. Retention is yours to set.

FAQ

ChiAha Edge,
plainly answered.

What do I need on site?