Allen Bradley Vs Automation Direct

Hi, I work for a company in which we manufacture capital equipment. Currently we use Automation Direct DL06 PLC's and the DirectSoft 5 programming software in conjuction with Red Lion HMI's as our control system. We have projects coming up that may require the use of Allen Bradley. Since I am unfamiliar with Allen Bradley does anyone have a preference or any words of caution in the programming and useage differences between the two companies. Any input is greatly appreciated. Hipoguy.....

This is written for somebody traveling in the opposite direction than you, but it should prove helpful.

http://www.theplcguy.com/ABtoAD/Introduction.htm

Hipoguy,

What type of AB are you going to use? there are 2 different types of software 5000 and 500

the 5000 is Controllogix and CompactLogix

the 500 is used for Micrologix 1000-1500 and SLC 500's

I went the other way, from AB to AD (not entirely) but I am a end user and I know have 15ish DL06's,

Berine has provided some very good information on his site (hence the reason I have a link on mine to his) but that article that Steve has link is for the 500 series

I don't think you will have a issue going to the 500 but the 5000 is a little harder to grasp, the 500 you can see everything in you data tables and everything is addressed from them and for the most part they are somewhat fixed, but the 5000 is kind of like rolling your own, either way... there are enough people here that can get you going on one or the other

Do you have the software yet? if not you can get a free version to play with, also you will need software to communicate with the PLC the programming software is not enough by its self

geniusintraining said:

Hipoguy,

What type of AB are you going to use? there are 2 different types of software 5000 and 500

Click to expand...

There are three. Don't forget RSLogix5 for the PLC5 processors.
I know you knew this.

Mickey said:

..I know you knew this.

Click to expand...

ya I knew that ...I was just seeing if you were paying attention Mickey

BTW, I like you new avatar

Greetings Hipoguy ...



and welcome to the forum ...

does anyone have ... any words of caution in the ... differences between the two ...

Click to expand...

this is probably overkill at your stage of the game, but since you asked, click this link and read about the subtle differences between AD “set/reset” and AB “latch/unlatch” instructions ...


also ... if you’ve been spoiled by stage programming in the AD systems, you’re probably going to miss it in the AB ... on the other hand, I always found the AB memory usage easier to work with - but I'm sure that others will disagree with me ...



good luck with your project ...

I have always maintained that if you provide more than one control system it will end up costing the OEM (especially small ones)more overall in lost time because instead of one control system you now have two to maintain.

I am a big AD supporter, (no surprise here for the regulars). For the company I used to work for, from a hardware standpoint, AB cost 3 times as much as AD. The company sold approximately 20 different machine designs and usually no two machines were exactly the same. We became very good at using AD's product line. Now if we added an AB controller and all the other bells and whistles we would now have twice as many drawings to maintain and control systems to service. In addition to this, new system designs were incorporated into existing designs and older designs would have to be updated to accomodate these. All programming (PLC and HMI) to accomodate this would be doubled.

When I first started working there, he offered 5 different control systems. It became a logistic nightmare. After several years of this, I was able to convince the owner that it would be in the company's best interest to standardize on one control system and stick with. This helped the company to better support their customers because all the systems used the same PLC and HMI with minor modifications to the program for each individual system. After making this change, we were able to build more machines faster.

Just some food for thought.

Bob

<waves at everyone>

Bob is right, but in many industries OEMs and ssytem integrators are stuck with a choice between severely narrowing business opportunities and supporting mulitple platforms.

Hipoguy, I went through the same transition that you are contemplating. The greatest hurdles were understanding the A-B addressing convention, running RSLinx as a separate communications program, and getting used to the inability to separate logic downloads from register and data memory downloads.

I still prefer AutomationDirect.com overall, but there are many things I like better about A-B.

The key to the transition is to not think about how to make an A-B act like AutomationDirect.com, but instead how to use the A-B platform to accomplish the control task required.