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The Micro8xx controllers from Allen-Bradley - Rockwell.

Miguels244

Diamond
Joined
Mar 27, 2011
Location
Denver, CO USA
I read with interest ABs adoption of the IEC 61131 language for their Micro8xxx controllers.
The controllers seemed quite competent for smaller controllers with a broad range of expansion capabilities.
I was also interested in the motion control and high speed counter capabilities of the platform, not for my current application, but for future use.

The platform claims IEC-61131 compliance.
This would be a refreshing change from Rockwell's traditional closed, expensive and bloated software.
Add that the programming platform is free and I was hoping for a real winner.
Since the majority of my experience is CodeSys on multiple platforms I was looking forward to using the system.

Sadly, upon installing the Rockwell software, which takes an entire DVD and a couple of hours, I found it to be poor.
An apt comparison to CodeSys would be to compare QBasic to a modern IDE.

Other vendors have adopted the IEC-61131 whole heartedly, Rockwell has not.
In fact I have used a single CodeSys installation with multiple vendors, often in the same system.

I think Rockwell missed a chance here.
I understand that Rockwell likes to keep it's ecosystem closed, but this was a missed chance.

Other than this it's an adequate low cost platform, no more, no less.

Just my 0.02
 
What is the advantage of IEC 61131 compliance? I read Wikipedia and it doesn't really seem to list anything super groundbreakingly new other than a LINT which I data type haven't dealt with yet. Do a lot of people access/edit the program in something other than classic ladder format?

I doubt they are going to give access to their processor without their own software.


IEC 61131-3 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
I use automation direct.... much more economical, decent support, and based off fanuc series 1.... understand automation direct and you can read the ladder of a fanuc 16....
 
What is the advantage of IEC 61131 compliance? I read Wikipedia and it doesn't really seem to list anything super groundbreakingly new other than a LINT which I data type haven't dealt with yet. Do a lot of people access/edit the program in something other than classic ladder format?

I doubt they are going to give access to their processor without their own software.


IEC 61131-3 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lots of people use other code than ladder, especially in complex systems.
Writing a multidimensional matrix in ladder...just shoot me.

IEC 61131 is hardware agnostic, this means that learning one system crosses platforms.
As I said I have used multiple pieces of hardware from different vendors on the same system.
 
What does the "multiple devices" mean, a siemens I/O module plugged into an Al Bradley chassis? Just curious because I've seen Turck and Siemens I/O modules (remote mind you) talking to an Allen Bradley MicroLogix processor. Seems like if they both use Dnet and you can configure the addressing on the network properly they should all eventually talk with the same comm protocol.

I worked in a plant with flowchart logic. Only about 5 people in the whole place could understand how to edit the logic and jumper things to make machines run when there were problems, and I was not one of them. In graphical ladder logic its pretty easy, provided you know where to start. Which brings up the infinitely useful cross reference tool. One of the formats described looked like a Fanuc robot program, where you jump around to various sections of the program and jump in and out of program calls. The Fanuc robot has zero ability to track the interface other than to sit down and study the program from the top and figure out how it got to where it is now. Simple enough for a relatively short robot program, but if forced into that on a big PLC program...yow. Subroutine calls are already hard enough to troubleshoot in and out of with the ladder logic.

Being a fixit maintenance person I'll always believe that simplicity is ultimately better, not how elegantly the program can be implemented in the fewest number of lines but involving the maximum number of jumps.
 
You can code FESTO, Rexroth, and Beckhof controllers, IO, drives and displays from the same IDE.
A lot of what I have done would take thousands of rungs, so long that it would take several pages to scroll through them.
Cross referencing is a non issue in CodeSys...forward and backward.

Ladder emulates control systems designed to run on mechanical relays, not modern systems.
There is much to be said for a system anyone can work with, but systems that would take 100 pages of ladder are written in 1 page of structured text.
Frankly the idea of a 'jump' in ST makes no sense.
 
You can code FESTO, Rexroth, and Beckhof controllers, IO, drives and displays from the same IDE.
A lot of what I have done would take thousands of rungs, so long that it would take several pages to scroll through them.
Cross referencing is a non issue in CodeSys...forward and backward.

Ladder emulates control systems designed to run on mechanical relays, not modern systems.
There is much to be said for a system anyone can work with, but systems that would take 100 pages of ladder are written in 1 page of structured text.
Frankly the idea of a 'jump' in ST makes no sense.

A bit late to the party here. Frankly my jaw dropped a bit when I saw a Codesys thread in PM. Miguels244 is right on. IEC 61131-3, codesys especially, has the dual advantage of being system independent and of being able to code in 6 different languages. Besides industrial controllers seen on factory floors, we use it heavily in the Mobile Eq and Ag industries. Being able to mix ST (very similar to C) with Function Block, Ladder, Continous Function Chart, etc is indispensible. Maybe your have some legacy ladder logic that's proven stable for years and don't want to ditch it but have to create new features or functionality for your product. Being able to mix the code together; import some legacy ladder logic here, add some new ST or FB over there, and know it's all designed to work together is great. In the Mobile Eq industry we have our hold out vendors that try to keep things proprietary too though. Parker keeps pushing a repackaged codesys IDE called iQan. It's expensive, and is much less adaptable than Codesys, which is free.
 
The new Control-Techniques M series drives have codesys embedded as does Omron which recently purchased Delta Tau . . . The aforementioned Bosch, Beckhof, Festo, etc. controllers don't have a huge degree of acceptance compared to Rockwell or Siemens among big automation users and as such, they don't have the volume to support proprietary software development environments so CodeSys is it.

We have dabbled with Codesys and it looks great - but convincing a large manufacturer with 30 plants in the US who all have maintenance departments responsible for hundreds of machines and who have all standardized on Rockwell to accept something new like Codesys . . . its not going to happen easily if at all.
 
The new Control-Techniques M series drives have codesys embedded as does Omron which recently purchased Delta Tau . . . The aforementioned Bosch, Beckhof, Festo, etc. controllers don't have a huge degree of acceptance compared to Rockwell or Siemens among big automation users and as such, they don't have the volume to support proprietary software development environments so CodeSys is it.

We have dabbled with Codesys and it looks great - but convincing a large manufacturer with 30 plants in the US who all have maintenance departments responsible for hundreds of machines and who have all standardized on Rockwell to accept something new like Codesys . . . its not going to happen easily if at all.

Yep that's Rockwell's business model right there.
The other brands have a lot more traction in the EU and Asia.
Interesting abut the CT drives.
Rexroth has had it in their drives for about ten years.

Rockwell...You can buy better, but you can't pay more.
 








 
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