Host Engineering Forum
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: DLTimmons on December 14, 2017, 09:24:17 AM
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Don't you just love when some management guy thinks he knows what the best PLC is and never program one in his life!!
Does anyone have any good quality data on Automation Direct(do-more 205 base systems) vs. AB compactlogix? Management claiming we have too much down time and the poor quality I/O cards from AD are the cause. We have a bunch of parts changers doing Electric maintenance that start changing cards as a first line trouble shooting method, and they never put the original back in if it did not fix the problem.
I would like to keep them from drinking the AB the only good guilty PLC Kool-Aid and the very high cost that goes with it.
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I don't have any data, but I can say that the only real IO card problems I have had with the 205 series has all been related to coils without any suppression. The spikes can wreak havoc on the cards. All I have had to do, is add the proper surge suppression, and the issues went away.
IOW: I have found the 205 series to be very reliable as long as proper wiring techniques are used.
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I have agree fully. I just have to have some way of getting thru to the management team that all they are going to gain by making this switch is a lot less money for other projects. As a former coworker state we would not have done half the projects we did if we had been using AB.
I just hate having to deal with Rockwell software activations!!!!!!
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What plcnut said. I have been with this company for 17 years. There is automation direct plcs everywhere. Even overseas. I have had some bad output cards go bad due to shorted coils, bad designs, but very very rarely. The cost of AB products is rediculous and so is the software. I have people in a sister plant still using the micrologix with RS500 software cause buying the rs5000 software is out of sight. RS500 is barbaric compared to the D0-More. If management adds up all the cost... You do have to be careful, we have management that live by AB their opinions and outlook is really biased. No matter what is said, they find a way to defend using AB even if the cost is triple to what it would be using something else. Nice I do not have to answer to those and can use what I want at this plant.
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I used AD PLCs for 16 years, then went to work for a company using AB for 12 years. Way way way more problems on the AB PLCs. Then there was the software side of things that just made you want to scream. Stupid crap like shipping CompactLogix processors with version 1.0 firmware that is completely unusable so you have to upload new firmware before loading a program. This often took an hour. I have pulled the plug on using or supporting AB in my new job. Don’t miss AB a bit.
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We know what the best bang for the buck is in PLC's. How do we convey that to management that is wanting to CYA with Higher ups. "No one ever got fired for buying AB because it does not fail" ;) We have nothing that if it goes down will mean life or death.
Supposedly we had a input card fail after three hours so all AD stuff is junk and causes to much down time. I had a Click run with 120 volts AC the 24 volt dc input for 2 month before it failed, Wander why :o
They never had to connect to a stand along Compact logix in the middle on the night or talk some thru a problem.
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Confirmation bias. Whatever. We'll take care of the customers who do buy from us.
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Now this is the bunch that wanted us to control braking on a 2 arm decoiler with one proportional value on the tank side of the valve manifold because they did not want to spend the money for two. Yes one valve control braking on both arms now it was one at a time.
Bob0
You have a problem fixed before you even communicate with someone from AB. You want a real blast try contacting Siemens ;D
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We use what is best suited for the task at hand or what the customer request. AB, Siemens, GEIP, Omron, AD, Mitsubishi, ABB, If installed and designed properly we had found all of them to be very reliable. It comes down to service, support (locally from someone like me and the Manufacturer) and knowledge of the plant maintenance people to keep the systems running and what do they stock for spares already. We have hundreds of installations running some over 15 years old with AD products (DL05, DL06, DL205, DL405, Domore, Productivity) and like others have said if installed properly we do not have problems with the Automation Direct hardware. The support from AD and Host is better than any of the others we work with, (they will admit if they have a issue and fix it quick, get AB to say it is their problem) AB you better have a tech connect contract ($$$/year) or break out the credit card if you need help. We have had a lot of trouble with the ML1100 loosing the program in memory, we quit using them and went to the ML1400 if AB is required for a small project. We have not tracked the failure data on one brand vs another but we have no problem promoting AD products, which puts our reputation on the line also.
JW
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Thanks to all I need someone to talk to. One good thing get use to using AB again then when thing go belly up I has AB on my resume.
I had this keep me up 4 hours Thursday morning. Trying to find the right argument to present that would stop them from doing something that will cost them so much. Yes I’m biased who want to do something the hard way when there a much easier way that cost less. I really hate Rockwell software activation locking to just one PC or that Dongle that gets lost or broken. Part of the problem is we are getting some new people in that have never work with anything but AB. Therefore they don’t know to think about using a Do-more. The reason we are getting them is the former employers have shut down the operations in this area. Could it be in part that they never watched their cost? The highest price there for it must be the best kind of thing.
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I've used a TON of DL stuff over the years, as well as a lot of all the different AB and Siemens generations, and a smattering of Generous Electric, Omron and so on, and in my experience, the ADC stuff is actually the BEST for failure rate. The AB and Siemens stuff is good, too, but probably a bit higher OOB failure rate than ADC, especially AB.
I did have one horrible project on an early Control Logix in like 1999-2000, probably around v2.5 with a CPU, a DeviceNet card, the DOS PC module with the RJ45 serial port, an Ethernet card, a lot of analog, three servo cards running 1336-FORCE drives with induction motors and encoders, and miscellaneous discrete. EVERYTHING in that app failed. They replaced the CPU, both comm cards, the analog, the servos, and I think even the PC card, rack and power supply. I think only the digital escaped unscathed.
I also had one site with an S7-300 where a bunch of stuff died in 07 or so about a year after commissioning, but a lot of stuff from a lot of different brands died simultaneously, so it had to have been some electrical issue rather than anything to do with Siemens per se.
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What started this rant is a big project that using 42 servo drives that will connect Ethernet to the controller.
It's not my project and the kid that doing it what to use a $10,000 AB control logix and $3200 software package. He only worked with AB four systems at that. Based on that he thinks AB better. He priced out 21 H2-Ctrio and 42 encoder cards for the M700 the encoder card double the price of the drive and that combo raised the price of the do-more system to within 700 dollars of the AB system. This has management all excited in the can get AB for only $700 dollars more the “AD Junk just look at the card usage”. We have a lot of I/O cards replaced that are not back because they don’t want to pay for good maintenance guys and controlled climate control room free of dirt and water.
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There is a real good reason why AD stuff is reliable. It's free tech support. Anything that generates calls to tech support costs AD money too, they have skin in the game. At AB the same problem generates revenue for paid tech support! In addition to that AB itself does not stock anything. They pushed the stocking function out to the distributors. We got struck by lightning on a job out of state. My AB distributor did not have even one part needed to get this sewage plant up and running, and every part was three weeks from AB! I asked if they could get the parts from another distributor. Oh no a distributor who put a lot of their money into spares on the shelf is not going to help a distributor that did. Fortunately the distributor near the job had every part, but they couldn't sell it to our company. I had to go to the counter and buy it all with a credit card so it would be a local sale! This kind of BS just makes me want scream!
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Update Time
I was told Monday that we will only use AB from now on. Had to unlink my account here from my work email, and log on from home so I can say what I feel.
Our parts swappers have been real busy the last year. They think AB is going to cure that ;D They can't tell me what processor of the 25 compactlogix CPU yet. If they want to spend the money that's their problem but when they will not pay for good techs that's what you get.
What really blew my mind my boss who has never programmed a PLC said that you can deploy AB twice as fast as any PLC. But don't tell me that it can be deployed twice as fast and implied that I have to do that!
I will miss stage programming the most.
simple modbus communications, Peer to peer , PLC to drives and PLC to PC At the cost of Do-more's I use several and link by modbus.
Rampsoke
and the CTRIO2.
AB had the automation rep in today and no work around for the above items. So if any of you bright folks have a work around for the loss of the above function please enlighten me. Right now I feel I have one hand tied behind my back and thrown in the ring with George Foreman and told I have to knock him in two rounds.
Ps if any know of a place in North East Texas that would like a very experienced Do-more programmer that can do some real off the wall stuff PM me.
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For some reason the analog cards fail occasionally, (Facts engineering) but all the other cards are very reliable, and I've been using AD for a long, long time. You can't beat the tech support, especially Host. Free software, free upgrades, free tech support, low cost, reliable, what's not to like.
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Update Time
That's sad to hear. We hear from a lot of people who think Do-more is the best PLC out there, better than A/B or any other PLC. These are people who have experience across many PLC lines. But they also mention that they have to be careful how boisterous they are because of all the A/B bigots out there.
What's great is that all of the Do-more CPUs and the entire BRX line is developed, designed, and manufactured here in the USA. Even the plastic is made in Knoxville, TN!! Not too many PLC lines can make that claim.
Sad, sad, sad. >:(
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For some reason the analog cards fail occasionally, (Facts engineering)
Seen the same thing, that did not help in keeping AD as a source.
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With regard to analog reliability, how does that apply to platform? Same across H2/T1H/BRX, or not?
We've had enough requests for the BRX onboard channels in module form that we are pursuing that. If you are happy with what you're using, we certainly encourage you to continue using them, but there will be alternatives with a different feature set.
Key differences:
1. Universal voltage/current
2. Internal power, no external 24v required
3. Two isolation banks
4. 1.2ms update rate for *all* channels
5. 5mm terminations
6. Onboard filtering
If well received, we may also consider a universal temperature module.
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Sad, sad, sad. >:(
I got to get out of that place sad it was a very good place till a couple years ago. had a heart rate of 100 and blood pressure of 220/120 thought I was headed to ER last night till got it down to 170/100 still going to Doctor today. The stress of losing stage programming, rampsoak ,CTRIO2 and Modbus communication was just a little to much to deal with on top of it turning to a good old boy club and having to say what they want to hear not want they need to hear. They "layed off" two very good control guys that starting Do-more on every thing. introduce someone to a do-more and the next thing you see they are using them most of the time! Even after laying odd two guys their still bring a new guy on. Want bet he is AB suckup?
I have to overcome major mechanical issue oh the boss is a mechanical engineer and the mechanical group can not get things right forcing the control group to over come their problems
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With regard to analog reliability, how does that apply to platform? Same across H2/T1H/BRX, or not?
F2-02DA-2 are the one we lose. Not sure if the redesign to a single board helped yet. Have seen some two board separate under vibration.
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I will miss stage programming the most.
If they buy the ($$$$) top of the line CLX software, you can do ST and FBD, so it may do SFC, I can't remember. I know some models of PLC-5 did. Stage is just Koyo's semi-implementation of SFC.
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What's great is that all of the Do-more CPUs and the entire BRX line is developed, designed, and manufactured here in the USA. Even the plastic is made in Knoxville, TN!!
I tell people that all the time and their jaws drop!
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I have to overcome major mechanical issue oh the boss is a mechanical engineer and the mechanical group can not get things right forcing the control group to over come their problems
I HATE that!! I'm an ME crossed over from (to?) the dark side, so I have no patience with the mechanical being hosed up, and bandaiding over a bad design with controls is always asking for trouble. When I've worked in that scenario, the ME/PM's didn't like hearing that, but you can't always get what you want.
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bandaiding over a bad design with controls is always asking for trouble.
Been telling them that for years. Now they think AB going to cure all the problems. AB not going make maintenance guys use meters. They for sure not going to be able to use a PC for trouble shoot as they not going to want to but that many copies of the software and shared PC don't work. wait till they start shoot gun AB cards :-[ :-[ :-[
If by some chance I still there I think I will use ST on every thing that will really blow the maintenance guys minds
They think the compactlogix series is how the going to go.
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DL,
You have my condolences, I escaped from AB about 5 years ago and have no desire to go back. I haven't had a software licensing issue in 5 years now, it is so pleasant. I get parts in two days and don't have to worry about whether the local rep actually stocks these parts because AB stocks NOTHING. We are now having our panels built by outside UL 508 shops. They all want to substitute other brands of whatever. We are resolute, no substitutions are allowed, all AD. You don't like AD, we don't have a problem with that but you will use it if want our business. No one has walked yet. If we need to service a system out of state I want to be very sure that even the terminal blocks I carry in my bag will fit, and I won't have to find a local vendor to sell them to me either.
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DL,
You have my condolences,
I thank you. Back from Doc on meds now I will use up some of that 200 hours of sick time that I will lose
I escaped 13 years ago that was a big reason I started there. Directsoft is good but when the do-more came out that was a game changer. Right now we still have 30 WinPLCs and I have the only Pc that will run Think and do. Now you think a do-more up grade would be the way to go. No they want to replace the d2 rack with AB and most of these will require new cabinet as there not room in them for the AB. There big reason for the AB is down time they want to blame on AD PLCs! How much down will there be making that swap ;D
They had a round of layoffs seam they got 2 from the control group the 2 most vocal about AB not fitting the "never fail" as both guys had several AB systems fail on them at other places. I believe the only reason they did not lay me off was I 'm the only that can work on the WinPLc and they are is some critical systems that if they go down it not long before they have start sending welders home Plus 2 major material handling system that I wrote PC interface on, as well as the PLC programs
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With regard to analog reliability, how does that apply to platform? Same across H2/T1H/BRX, or not?
For me it's always been the 205 series, but I don't have any analog in the T1H, and haven't had BRX long enough to say. I've also had some fails with the F2-04THM.
I've actually considered ezautomation's "drop In Replacement modules" for the 205 analog, to see if they hold up better than Facts modules, but am to gun shy to try.
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I've actually considered ezautomation's "drop In Replacement modules" for the 205 analog, to see if they hold up better than Facts modules, but am to gun shy to try.
EZA's probably come with sleeze preinstalled.
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Having bashed the Facts analog a bit, I must say that I've had several Siemens analog modules fail also, so don't get me wrong I'm hard core AD/Host.
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If there are any issues with any BRX module, please let us know. I believe that FACTS does a very good job with design phase testing and I know that is something they have worked on over the years. Production testing is something I know they are constantly improving, and if there are any issues, I would fully expect that to improve over time. Reliability is a different problem altogether, and I really don't have any information to evaluate that. I can give pretty much the same exact answers for all three things from Host's side. The one promise I can make on behalf of Host: If there are problems, we *will* fix them.
On reliability: When we worked at TI years ago, there were standard "design for reliability" guidelines we used. Many of the rules have changed since then, mostly due to improvements in production testing by part vendors. Some of it is just common sense though...protect vulnerable parts and don't stress them. Sometimes we don't know things are being stressed (like small stress over small windows of time), and issues don't show up for a while.
Fun story along those lines: During BRX development we were losing one of the onboard power supplies at a ridiculous rate. Checked and checked the design. Everything well within spec. No clue. After weeks of randomly breaking stuff, we finally figured out that a transformer was not performing anywhere near its spec, and would touch the edge of saturation at a much lower level than spec. Occasionally, that would progress to the point it would warm the core until it stopped being magnetic...catastrophic failure. The answer was simple, but there was really nothing the engineer could have done better.
There is always a balance between cost and robustness though. I'm sure we could build space station level triple redundancy, but nobody would pay for it...except NASA. And the flip side of that is that although up time would be basically 100%, replacement costs would explode...since triple redundancy reduces MTBF by 66%. Reminds me of the old saw from aviation: A twin engine plane has double the chance of failure, and the purpose of the second engine is to guarantee that you are going faster when you crash.
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Reminds me of the old saw from aviation: A twin engine plane has double the chance of failure, and the purpose of the second engine is to guarantee that you are going faster when you crash.
"A pilot is merely in an aircraft to control the amount of damage the crash does since every landing is simply a controlled crash."
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"A pilot is merely in an aircraft to control the amount of damage the crash does since every landing is simply a controlled crash."
Exactly this. Always wear your brown pants. :o
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Reminds me of the old saw from aviation: A twin engine plane has double the chance of failure, and the purpose of the second engine is to guarantee that you are going faster when you crash.
If somebody asks my buddy the pilot how far a small plane will glide, his answer is: "All the way to the crash site!"
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He also describes a good landing as one where you can use the plane again.
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There is a disconcerting amount of gallows humor in aviation, but for good reason.
"Aviation is inherently unsafe, but can be made tolerable by well-maintained aircraft and well-trained pilots".
"Aviation is hours of abject boredom, punctuated by moments of sheer terror".
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Things are getting disconcerting in my job right now too. My boss has started looking critically at everything I do and he is finding mistakes I made. I make lots of mistakes when you force me to decide between a thorough examination of the process and getting a quote out the door! Lately he has been telling me how things he wants done are so simple. He doesn't use 3D modeling, can't do wiring diagrams, can't program PLCs or CNCs so I guess because I am good at all these things the work looks simple when I do it.
Yesterday he wanted something done that he said was simple, all you need is a pump a tank and a couple of level sensors and some PLC programming. Never mind whether there is space in the cabinet for a VFD and it's associated hardware or I/O available. This morning I told him that I could do it with the existing tank, and remove two automated valves in the bargain. He calls a meeting and says to me "Go ahead and explain your idea" I literally said three words and he says hold on a second I want to say one thing. He then goes on for ten minutes and off on six tangents while mostly finishing what I was going to say!
This is getting totally ridiculous.
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I had a customer like that. His techs called him "Easy Button"! ;D
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Update
I turned in a resignation letter Monday. Leaving a 1000+ employee company going to a 60 employee company, Will be the Plant Engineer. Not as many big projects but a lot of small one that can really make a difference . Will have the chance to train some younger guys. Will be taking a pay cut but pay is not every thing.
So I'm feeling a lot better. Will get to share Do-more's with some young minds. Have yet to have someone that really took an open minded look at the do-more that did not become a fan.
Thanks to all for the support
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@DLTimmons
Good for you!
I hope things go great for you in your new venture.
When do you start?
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I turned in a resignation letter Monday. Leaving a 1000+ employee company going to a 60 employee company, Will be the Plant Engineer. Not as many big projects but a lot of small one that can really make a difference . Will have the chance to train some younger guys. Will be taking a pay cut but pay is not every thing.
The improvement in stress will be more than worth the pay cut, plus in a smaller company there's a lot more opportunity to be judged on your merits and be paid accordingly. Wish you well with it! You might end up taking in more work on the side or going out on your own. I've been doing it for a couple decades now and I still haven't learned my lesson! :)
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Thanks All
What is funny. The owner of the new company was my first boss at the old one, so he know what I can do. The old company will not let me come back till I have a doctors release and I see the doctor Thursday. Not sure what will happen they may just walk me out the door. Did not tell them I was going to a competitor ;D
Baring being walk out I start April first or sooner.
So in the mean time I enjoying some that sick leave that I will be losing.
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Best of luck, take care of yourself first. Large companies have a tendency to undervalue technical talent. Most managers don't have a clue, what technical people do until they are gone. IN their minds, if you can't put it on an excel chart, it can't be too important :P It will probably work out for the best in the long run. Don't worry too much about finding work if you have to. I think there is a demand for experienced controls people and PLC programmers. I've passed up new work several times in the past month if that is any indication, but I guess that depends on your location.
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Best of luck in your new job,
As I've just recently learned the hard way, you have to do what is best for you, and sometimes that is not what is best for where you work. Currently the phrase "People quit managers not jobs." rings true.
I have a similar manager, always micromanages my projects even though he has no idea what is going on. I explained to him that I'm 'lazy' I want to design and build projects that work so well I never have to touch them again. But then management gets their hands on things and they always go south. Its not even about the cost of some these jobs. It's the old outdated way of thinking.
We spent 175K 2 years ago to replace a TI5 PLC with an S7, only to leave 30 year old control wiring throughout the machine that was laying in oil soaked trenches. Blows my mind...