AD PLCs in the UK

JohnW · Apr 13, 2005

I have read quite a lot about the Automation Direct PLCs. Has anyone in the UK had experience with these and with supply times, prices and services etc.?

504bloke · Apr 18, 2005

Nope, i have read a lot but never come across AD in my travels and work in the UK

Eric Nelson Kindly gave me this link for the UK Distributor

www.lamonde.com

elevmike · Apr 18, 2005

The Lamonde link appears to be dead.

Eric Nelson · Apr 18, 2005

elevmike said:
The Lamonde link appears to be dead.

Hmmm... It worked yesterday. Maybe their server got overloaded with hits from the UK guys looking for AD stuff?...

While they recover, HERE'S a list of other distributors in Europe.

-Eric

504bloke · Apr 19, 2005

elevmike said:
The Lamonde link appears to be dead.

It worked for me last night

But it doesnt work this morning!

Kidblue · Apr 19, 2005

Made contact with Lamonde about 12 months ago and received all the latest glossy's on everything they do. Not bad. Very competitive price wise, just not taken the plunge and put my toe in the water!!

Their HMI's appealed more to us. They were quoting the same for colour screens in various sizes as others were charging for the equivalent monochromes etc.

Be intersested if someone has actually tried them...........

icky812 · Apr 19, 2005

The Lamonde link seems to be working again this morning. Perhaps routine maintenance?

JohnW · Apr 19, 2005

Thanks for the link, the prices do seem quite good. Our customers are tied into the big boys for now but new customers converting from relay logic may well be tempted by the low cost, even with the discounts we get on other PLCs. The modbus built-in makes them competitive with the Momentum for instance. How easy would it be to convert a program from Momentum to AD?

Tom Jenkins · Apr 20, 2005

It depends on which language you used. If you are using IEC ladder logic and don't have a lot of function blocks the conversion should be simple.

If you have a lot of function blocks or are using other than ladder logic in IEC the conversion may be difficult, but doable.

If you have 984 ladder logic the conversion should be simple and stratight forward. Just remember that AutomtionDirect scans loogic like most PLCs besides Modicon 984 - left to right first, then top to bottom rung by rung.

I personally find DirectSoft easier to use and more intuitive than Concept.

JohnW · Apr 21, 2005

Thanks Tom,

I have had a look at the AD prices in the UK and they work out about 40% cheaper like-for-like. I am certainly considering them for new designs but the program conversion overhead takes the edge off the hardware cost saving.

elevmike · Apr 21, 2005

John,

When we swiched to AD the program conversion was a fear that turned out to be unfounded. DirectSoft is pretty streight fowrard, and more complex instructions were easy to pickup on. It took me about 16 hours to convert 2200 instructions from Omron to DirectSoft (this included the DirctSoft learning curve).

If you have a "base" program that will be used for a majority of your project with minor changes from project to project, the switch will likely pay off quickly.

AD PLCs in the UK

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