AB PLC5 product lifetime.

Hi.

Has AB/Rockwell ever announced anything about for how long the PLC5 product line will be available ?
Anything about how long you can purchase factory new PLC5 products as normally ?
Anything about how long PLC5 products can be purchased as spare parts ?

Some Info here:

http://www.ab.com/silver/index.html

Thanks Mickey.

The enhanced PLC5's I am thinking of is not in that list. Which is good because all the "silver" deadlines have expired.

Let me ask in another way:
For the products that are in the list of silver products, how much time in advance were the silver deadlines announced ?
From that one should be able to guess how much time (or longer) that Enhanced PLC5 will still be available.

I beleive PLC5s will be sold as active product for new installations at least 5-7 years.
Your local RA sales engineer should have more accurate data.

But you can buy complete ControlLogix system for a price of one PLC5 controller.

The PLC5 is entrenched in many ways, expect it to be around for a long time, even when manufacturing of the product discontinues I expect there will be replacement parts.

If no rush then stay with what you have, if plans on the horizon for more to be done then move over to Compact or Control Logix.

Contr_Conn said:

But you can buy complete ControlLogix system for a price of one PLC5 controller.

Click to expand...

Depends where you buy it. For OEM's the obvious choice is to go with control logix as most customers would balk at the idea of surplus equipment. For those of us maintaining and modifying existing equipment PLC5 and SLC equipment is an absolute steal.

I recently had a 1771-bas card fail. Approx $2K for one from AB. I bought 2 on ebay for $35.00/ea. I am currently upgrading some machines with 5/03's to enet capability. I bought 4 surplus 5/05's (latest revisons and all) for $1200.00 ea. I could have bought compact logix and rewired everything but why? 10 minute upgrade, done.

Luckily for me there are lots of companies that are replacing their SLC and PLC5 equipment with logix just for the sake of having the latest and greatest. I am doing what's in my companies best interest, providing the controls that are needed at the best cost.

I'll probably be retired by the time there is a need to upgrade.

Company stright policy here forbid me from purchasing from ebay.
Only original manufacturer supply lines are allowed.
Thats why I am asking about PLC5 in particular.

Personally I would not have a problem with telling a customer that a spare part is "used, but tested and OK". It is much better than "sorry, we can no longer sell you this particular spare part. You are on your own".