OPTRA® Product SuiteBlackbox
Examine what occurred, what is occurring, and what will occur inside the PLC.
Record and replay every PLC control action to find problems fast and predict issues before they happen - without stopping production.
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The Problem
Silent stops you can't explain
When a line stops unexpectedly, engineers are left guessing. PLC logs scroll too fast, camera footage is disconnected from signal data, and fault conditions vanish before investigation.
Blackbox captures everything continuously - go back to any moment and see exactly what the PLC was doing, down to the millisecond.
Real-World Example
At one facility, silent stops were occurring more than three times a day and even PLC engineers couldn't find the cause. Using Blackbox's Playback feature, engineers replayed the process in Gantt view and discovered a vehicle detection sensor was turning ON just 0.3 seconds too early. Tracing the related coil in Ladder View revealed a flaw in the PLC logic. After modifying the controller, the problem was completely solved.
Playback Feature
Synchronizes PLC signal data and field video on a unified time axis, letting you visually recreate past events as they occurred.
- •Trace signal behavior via Gantt View
- •Understand PLC logic flow through Ladder View
- •Review field conditions via synchronized Camera View
Trend Analysis
Calculates daily stats - average, standard deviation, max, and min - based on ON/OFF signal durations or analog values.
- •Operation time extracted using start/end conditions
- •Measurement values analyzed from collected word data
- •Visualized as trend graphs for easy interpretation
Alarm Analysis
Automatically calculates the gap between alarm activation and release. Traces logic paths to identify false or true alarm causes and highlights the final control contact in the sequence.
- •Alarm duration, total downtime & frequency in one dashboard
- •Duplicate alarm durations intelligently filtered
- •Accurate measurement of actual equipment downtime
Master Pattern
Learns standard equipment behavior by analyzing cycle-based control signals - capturing ON/OFF durations, sequences, and patterns to build a reference model.
- •Baseline generated from real production cycles
- •Real-time cycles compared continuously against master
- •Deviations visually highlighted for instant awareness
Ready to eliminate unexplained downtime?
SCADADOG handles the full deployment - site assessment, PoC, installation, and support.