How many different PLCs on site

Hi guys,

I wonder, on average, how many different PLC systems do you have on site? Where I work I counted 20 so far:

Mitsubishi Alpha
Mitsubishi FXON
Mitsubishi MelSec

Omreon Sysmac
Omron CPM
Omron SCY-P1

Siemens LOGO
Siemens S5
Siemens S7

Allen Bradley Micro800
Allen Bradley Micrologix
Allen Bradley SLC 500
Allen bradley SLC 100
Allen Bradley PLC 2

GE Fanuc 90-30
GE Fanuc AIF01 (not sure about this one)

Bosch PC400

Eaton

Schneider

Barth

Red Lion

No backups when I started here, no documentation at all.
I am half way through sourcing software and leads and making
back ups. Some of the PLCs have back up batteries dating back to the 90s !!! I don't dare to look at as they may break down
just by looking at them. Some are fitted in 'busines critical equipment' with OEMs out of business or 'homebrewed' equipment dating 40 years back. I wonder, is this anywhere else the same?

When I started in 2013...

Rockwell SLC 503
Rockwell PLC5 Ethernet
Rockwell PLC5 ControlNet
PLC5s have RIO, Devicenet IO, Controlnet IO
Rockwell ControlLogix
Siemens S5 95, 135 & 155
Klockner Moeller PS3
Mitsubishi FX1S
Festo PLC
GE-Fanuc 90-30 with Devicenet I/O

have since added
Rockwell MicroLogix 1100/1400
Rockwell (?) Micro850
Rockwell CompactLogix
Siemens S7 Safety

The K-M PLCs are almost all upgraded to ControlLogix
A few of the PLC5 are up to ControlLogix
One of our major RIO Flex systems has been changed to Ethernet when we did the ControlLogix upgrade
The GE Fanuc PLC has been changed to ControlLogix, but still with GE Devicenet I/O

The SCADA were scarier....Wonderware V7.0 to V10 on DOS/WinNT/Win95/Win2000/WinXP

Copystar licences were in abundance
Confiker Virus was present and still appears from time to time on backups

Backups exist and I still have them, once I found them all...or at least most of them
SCADA backups were done on mapped network drives, floppies, and one PC in an office, as well as an old NAS drive.
I had to resurrect a parallel ZIP drive from my home with 250MB disks, and put the drivers onto floppies to access many of the NT PCs
Many PCs had Ghost backups on CD and Windows Virtual Machines

We now have 64 PLCs, of which you can class 40 as being obsolete.
We have 1 PLC5 Co-processor card, but the spare we have does not have the required extended memory chips in them, and the one Rockwell Engineer in the UK who knew about this card has recently retired....

I eventually found my 36 Wonderware licences, although the two development licence numbers were on most of the workstations.

Ethernet network consisting of a mixture of fibre and copper and converters and unmanaged switches. Only drawings are from 1998 showing "fat ethernet", with some of that cabling and converters still in place and powered up, as well as co-ax network cables on some PCs...

3 years of challenges and more to come as money gets found to upgrade some areas.

Yikes guys..
Here's a word to pass to your management:
S-T-A-N-D-A-R-D-I-Z-A-T-I-O-N

I agree AGill, but the customer's budget is tight, they are sitting on their money. And I can't explain the benefits as they never listen anyway. If it is too latey they jump up and down and panic. So the struggle continues ...

our standard is AB, no exception.
we have a rep that's an hour away and he will deliver.
we have micrologix, 500's, plc5, compact logix, and logix 5k.
we have a storeroom with backups if one dies.
we have backups of the programs done on a regular basis.

james

James Mcquade said:

our standard is AB, no exception.
we have a rep that's an hour away and he will deliver.
we have micrologix, 500's, plc5, compact logix, and logix 5k.
we have a storeroom with backups if one dies.
we have backups of the programs done on a regular basis.

james

Click to expand...

Heaven must be where you are working, James. Any job vacancies at your place?

GE
AB Micrologix
AB SLC
AB Compact Logix
IDEC
CLICK
DO MORE
Can't remember what is in the CNC machines
About to have Siemens and Think & Do, and maybe some more.
Used to have several Omron but I've replaced them all with CLICK.

I must admit,

this is the best plant I have ever worked at.
A coworker and I take turns being on call 24/7 and we remote into the plant
to solve 99.9% of our issues in the middle of the night. Rarely have to come in at 2am. 3 times in 4 1/2 years.
Great boss.

james

Rockwell:Omron:Seimens S7

EZAutomation

Standardization is great, when you can get it...

Surface Mill

Rockwell
ControlLogix L61, L63, L73
Micrologix 1100
Micrologix 1400
Micrologix 1500

Underground

Rockwell
ControlLogix L63, L73
Micrologix 1400
Micrologix 1500
Compactlogix ???

Schneider
A984-120
TSX (I think)


Were here but are now retired
GE Series I
Telemechanique shoebox of some sort
Square D shoebox of some sort
Mddicon Quantum

We have 2 OEM packages out for bid, and neither have a vendor bidding Rockwell. It looks like another Schneider of some sort will be forced on us.

We have spares of everything in our warehouse. Software for everything as long as we can keep the old laptops running. All of the rockwell stuff is on a service agreement.

It is a challenge...Standardisation is Rockwell.
We have P1/P2 stock for our Rockwell Install Base.
Historically we got what we got from OEMs (usually German), but we are working towards standardising, along with our Mills in North America

AGill said:

Yikes guys..
Here's a word to pass to your management:
S-T-A-N-D-A-R-D-I-Z-A-T-I-O-N

Click to expand...

8 years ago our entire Northern Europe business unit standardized on Siemens. S7, WinCC(Flex), Simotion, etc.

Not a single system installed since has been Siemens.

We got Fanuc, Bosch, Rockwell, Schneider since. No Siemens. And not the newer stuff. The stuff we get is comparable with Siemens S5. It should've been torched over a decade ago.

/rant

Treat it as a great opportunity to learn many platforms.
Your CV will look impressive with all the different brands on it.

Some of us are past that stage Ronnie....

Old heads use years of experience to deal with thing like DOS - took me a while to remember the commands I needed to use....

JohnCalderwood said:

Some of us are past that stage Ronnie....

Old heads use years of experience to deal with thing like DOS - took me a while to remember the commands I needed to use....

Click to expand...

Too right