Fed Up With Allen Bradley and Rockwell

[mainstreetmark]

Yeah. Well, likely AB just purchased some poor company that did HMI's a few years back. That would explain the un-integrated-ness of the product.

I've used VTScada (trihedral.com) a few times, and kind of like it. However, I have yet to find a general purpose touchscreen i can install the software on that hits a good price point.

 

[BeavisPLCTALK]

Here is my feedback.

Have you ever try to deal with AB products called "HistorianSE", "HistorianME", "VantagePoint" etc...??? (they worth thousands of dollars)
If you did, you will have to re-define the concept of "worst think you have ever seen".
Takes days to set up, are not reliable, and you end having 5-6 gigabytes of bloatware installed to record a few signals.....
Not to mention the reboots I made: I feels like a flashback to the Windows95 era!

FTView ME/SE are "gold" compared to these products!!

 

[rdrast]

However, I will say that the Logix stuff is great. The programming software is good and the hardware it also good. Rockwell just needs to keep working on their SCADA/HMI stuff to bring it to the level of their new hardware.

test test

 

[rdrast]

However, I will say that the Logix stuff is great. The programming software is good and the hardware it also good. Rockwell just needs to keep working on their SCADA/HMI stuff to bring it Fire their dev team, burn all the sourcecode and pressed discs, apologize to their user base, and buy out a decent software company, with some talent, that has successful, easy to use, lightweight software that is up to the level of their new hardware.

There. FTFY

 

[Paul B]

I realize this is an old thread, re-awakened.

My major lows for Panelview Plus programming software:
1. No cross reference. If you didn't write the application so you know where everything is, you are screwed.

2. It's not really tag based. If you change a tag name you have to manually go fix every occurrence of that tag in the project. See Item #1.

3. If you change the name of a screen you have to to manually go fix everything that references that screen name in the project. See Item #1.

4. I cannot figure out how to put security on a setpoint. So what we do is have two fields on top of one another. One is display only and always visible. The other is read-write with a visibility expression based on security level and it is on top of the read only field. This makes for twice the work to put setpoints on the screen. See Item #1.

5. No layers. Everything on the screen is on the same layer. I have 32 layers with WinCC Flexible.

6. If I select an object and tap the arrow keys on my keyboard nothing happens. I have to first remember to position the cursor on top of the object. There are other things like this that are not the way regular Windows operating system things work.

Previous posters have commented on how poor the Application Manager interface is, how long it takes to download (Panel WAIT), etc.

We use Panelview Plus only when specified by end users. We all hate the software.

 

[mainstreetmark]

I realize this is an old thread, re-awakened.

My major lows for Panelview Plus programming software:
.
.
.
We use Panelview Plus only when specified by end users. We all hate the software.

What have you been using as an alternative?

 

[Paul B]

What have you been using as an alternative?

I prefer Siemens for HMI when allowed by customer to choose. Their WinCC Flexible software is the best HMI programming software I've ever used. The touchscreens and keypad units are great hardware. We use Siemens HMI on Siemens, GE, and Allen-Bradley PLC's. For AB it will not talk Ethernet to the SLC family but it will to CompactLogix.

 

[Paullys50]

Surprisingly I just got an FTViewSE Distributed 5.1 system up and running with minimal issues, the project is still in development but my activations were not an issue, my clients can obtain activations from the server with no issues, I am even using FTViewPoint for viewing the project in a browser, that was the EASIEST thing I have setup from Rockwell! (But I think they bought it from someone else hahahaha)

BUT it wasn't that easy!!

1 - I missed a component of IIS during setup, had to completely uninstall FTViewSE and reinstall FTViewSE.....

2 - This is funny, and everyone should be aware THERE IS A BUG IN 5.1 WHICH UNDER CERTAIN CONDITIONS WILL DELETE THE ARIEL BOLD FONT FROM YOUR WINDOWS FONT FILE! We would import screens and all text was defaulting to bold italics! Took a call to tech support for them to admit that one, not in the knowledge base yet, and no "offical" fix either. I copied the font from my XP machine and pasted it to the server and all is well.

The bigger hassle is that Dell will not pre-install an older OS anymore, they will ship the media but you have to do the install. 64 Bit Server 2008 comes standard, we all know Rockwell does not like a 64 bit OS, thus had to manually install 32 Bit Server 2003. That was a time consumer.

 

[Bob O]

(But I think they bought it from someone else hahahaha)

The developers of Viewpoint assumed EVERYONE has internet access and would throw and incorrect message about why the software would not install. I had to deal with tech support for over a month for them to finally get the developers involved and it was fixed within a couple of days. Other then that it was very easy to set-up and run.

 

[ELake20]

x2 on wincc flex.. AB has some work to do
They can't afford Siemens

 

[Gil47]

All morning, i've been trying to get a clean "compile" out of this thing, because it keeps popping the same error out of my global object that positively fixed yesterday.

What you describe to me appears to be a cache file issue, and even though what I describe below is for RSView 32, the same file structure described exists in the product you are using so may be worth a try.

This I have posted before.
Sometimes when edits are done in RSView 32, the project just does not want to release the cache files, and tries to keep running on previous settings.

A repair I do if any issue crops up, is to shut down the project, then in windows explorer, go into the project folder, open the cache folder, and blow away all files in that cache folder, they will be rebuilt on the next start up.

The next thing I do is go to the projects Tag folder, and look for one file with "the project name".cac
I THEN BLOW THAT ONE ONLY AWAY, leaving all the other files in that folder, this .cac file also will be rebuilt on project start up.

Then shut down computer and reboot and run your project.

I cant promise this will fix your problem, but it wont harm it either.

 

[Giz99]

I agree the most difficult thing these to deal with Rockwell these days is their licensing and installing their software. I have had to try and uninstall and re-install rockwell software due to issues and it is never fun. Using VMware is the way to go. If your system gets messed up it is sometimes easier to just clone your base operating system and start installing again.

Rockwell is not alone. I have had multiple issues with GE software. I think they come up with new service packs and versions of their software on a daily basis.

 

[Clay B.]

I think Factory Talk has it's place. Everytime I create something in it I appriciate Crimson 3 even more.

 

[Plastic]

Who moved my cheese?

 

[WildeKurt]

I've use PV Plus and FT Me (and it's earlier iteration) many times (50+ installations). The terminals are very robust and I've had no issues with them. The s/w isn't the greatest to be sure but works fairly well. I've yet to have any installation problems despite having installed it on quite a few different computers.