Blog Home

Introducing Opta Expansions: scalable simplicity!

Arduino TeamMay 6th, 2024

Last year, we launched the Arduino Pro Opta: it was an instant success with our community, and allowed us to reach PLC engineers with a new solution specifically designed for their needs. 

To further expand Opta’s capabilities, today the Arduino ecosystem welcomes various expansions that allow you to add new I/Os in the simplest and fastest way possible. 

Meet the Opta Digital Expansions

The digital expansions, Arduino Pro Opta Ext D1608E and Arduino Pro Opta Ext D1608S, are ideal to multiply the number of real-time control points in the manufacturing sector and in any building automation project. The new, ready-to-use I/Os are seamlessly adopted by the Opta controller, giving you a native-like management experience. Each expansion offers 16 programmable inputs and eight relay outputs (electromechanical or solid state), and up to five expansions can be mixed to obtain the best fit for each project.

Stay tuned for the Opta Analog Expansion!

We are also finalizing an analog option: the Arduino Pro Opta Ext A0602 (coming soon) will allow you to diversify your data acquisition capabilities, and expand your devices’ actuation possibilities with great flexibility and process efficiency. Configuring new inputs/outputs to acquire 0-10 V and 0/4-20 mA signals and temperature values through PT100 will help you take Opta’s monitoring and control capabilities to a new level.

Need to catch up on Opta?

The Opta is our industrial-grade micro PLC, developed in partnership with Finder to provide engineers with a durable, reliable, secure and high-performance hardware, while still maintaining our signature flexibility and ease of deployment in production. 

All three variants of Opta are based on a powerful STM32H747XI Dual ArmARM® Cortex® microcontroller and can be programmed using C++ in Arduino sketches, but also offer the flexibility of incorporating any or all of the 5 traditional IEC 61131-3 PLC automation control languages.

To find out more, check out the three variants in our Store:

Opta Lite: with Ethernet onboard and USB-C® programming ports (SKU: AFX00003)

Opta RS485: which also adds RS485 half duplex connectivity interface (SKU: AFX00001)

Opta WiFi: the most versatile option, featuring also Wi-Fi®/Bluetooth® Low Energy connectivity (SKU: AFX00002)

Boards:Pro