Reverse Engineering

ganutenator · Apr 27, 2016

1) perfectly legit. Company out of business and hardware dying and customers left hanging.
2) This is hard as heck w/o descriptions (ladder upload).

This is like a puzzle from heck.

Figured out the I/O and am working backwards.

Luckily only 168 rungs.

I'm on rung 9.

Hope to turn a profit.

Putting the ladder from Direct Soft into Unity Pro for the cross ref. et al.

Anyone else ever do this?

mendonsy · Apr 27, 2016

Personally I think you are wasting your time. If you know the connections to the hardware and the function of the machine then you are better off just to create the program from scratch.

ganutenator · Apr 27, 2016

mendonsy said:
Personally I think you are wasting your time. If you know the connections to the hardware and the function of the machine then you are better off just to create the program from scratch.

I agree wholeheartedly!

Always easier to write from scratch!

Problem, is I don't know the process.

If I had someone that was familiar w/ the system that could process engineer for me, that would be awesome.

I will end up writing from scratch.

Luckily there a **** ton of these out there.

sigmadelta · Apr 27, 2016

It's not a waste of time if you have the whole logic program.

I just did an IDEC to Siemens code conversion by uploading the IDEC, and typing all the instructions in one for one. It was only ladder logic. But I had a electrical drawing identifying all the inputs and outputs, and some explanation of the machine operation.

I even reverse-engineered a custom-written C++ HMI for which I only had the exe file.

RET · Apr 27, 2016

When you get cross-eyed, take a break.

JaxGTO · Apr 27, 2016

All to often I have to do this. Many times with a PLC I have never seen before. Just did one for a 6 grain silo flour system that was an old GE. I have the software for the GE and it even had some comments. Had been hacked for so many years over half of the program didn't do anything, the customer agreed to scrap it and I wrote a new one from scratch.

Sometimes though if it's a small program and they have the code, we will just do a rung-rung conversion. Most PLCs all have the same basic instructions so it's not to bad.

ganutenator · Apr 28, 2016

JaxGTO said:
All to often I have to do this. Many times with a PLC I have never seen before. Just did one for a 6 grain silo flour system that was an old GE. I have the software for the GE and it even had some comments. Had been hacked for so many years over half of the program didn't do anything, the customer agreed to scrap it and I wrote a new one from scratch.

Sometimes though if it's a small program and they have the code, we will just do a rung-rung conversion. Most PLCs all have the same basic instructions so it's not to bad.

doing the rung to rung conversion first to get it into my M340 Unity software so I can try to figure out the process, and also for the great cross referencing tools of the Unity Software.

Obviously couldn't afford to run this project on an M340.

I will need to understand it and not just translate it, as I will have to greatly expound on it.

Lare · Apr 28, 2016

ganutenator said:
1) only 168 rungs.

Should not be hard, even that you usually write from scratch at same time or even faster

Reverse Engineering

ganutenator

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mendonsy

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ganutenator

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sigmadelta

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RET

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JaxGTO

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ganutenator

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Lare

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