Should I use B&R???

My company is an OEM of packaging equipment. We have a long history using Rockwell products but are switching gears and looking for other technology providers to use on our equipment. B&R has been a serious consideration of ours for some time, but I still can't determine what the general public's opinion is of them. I go to shows and industry meetings and get very mixed feelings.

Anyone have history with B&R? What are some of your opinions?

Thanks!

My company is switching to B&R so that we can provide larger screens for quite a bit less then what we can get from Rockwell. We'll be using them as a Panelview replacement for the time being. The panel runs an XP embedded image off of a CF card, so no moving parts. Plus they design/build the main board themseleves, which means they should be able to make a replacement part for years to come.

I've actually had one at my desk for a couple of weeks playing with it, running ME applications making sure everything is happy. We are working fairly closely with B&R to ensure we make a smooth transition.

I can put you in contact with one of their sales reps, he maybe able to work with you to get a "demo" to play with. He was actually just in our office last week.

Let me know.

The question you should ask yourself, is what fieldbus you want to use over the long term.
With AB the natural choice is DeviceNet and Ethernet/IP.
With B&R it is CanOpen and Ethernet Powerlink.
With Siemens and some others it is Profibus and Profinet.

Apart from that, as far as I can guage, B&R's strength lies with motion control. They do not look bad, but apart from motion control I dont think they have something exceptionally speaking for them.

My opinion, based on my experience, is pretty poor on B&R. In the states they have a good branch, with decent tech support and inventory, but my complaint is with the equipment itself.

We have four milling machines running series 2000 controls. The NM module in this critter, for some hairball reason, only allows the system to be programmed with PG2000, the DOS-based package. It is incredibly difficult to understand, much less program. I'll simply cut to the chase, I absolutely loathe opening that software.

The NM module has firmware, the memory module has firmware, the CPU has firmware - hell, maybe the power supply has firmware, I don't know. I do know that all of them need to match, which makes spare parts a plumber's nightmare. Either you need to know the firmware in the component you need, or one of the matching components, and order it preloaded with the same or compatible firmware, or have the software installation tool (a DOS executable, natch) and the firmware file and cable and do it yourself when the part arrives.

In all fairness, I haven't tried their Windows software, and it may be orders of magnitude better - I'm sure alot has changed since 1988, when this albatross was hatched. Nevertheless, like PC control, my experience with it was so overwhelmingly negative that I cannot see myself ever giving it another opportunity.

My 2-bits.

TM

Paully, I've all ready had pretty extensive conversations with my local reps. They are chomping at the bit to gain market share through our company, I only need to give them the green flag to get rolling with them. Thanks for offering to set me up though.

As far as field bus, programming environment (software) and the like; I'm pretty flexible and am less concerned from that aspect. Although, not having used it yet and not knowing any better, it seems that ethernet powerlink is a very proprietary system that I'd have trouble using third party hardware with. Any thoughts on that?

Also, what I've heard are nightmare stories about not getting sufficient support, people getting locked into revs of software, cost of software and upgrades, etc. Stuff that sounds a lot like Rockwell horror stories.

I've been to a few days of B&R training, and from what I can remember you cannot do an upload of the program from there controllers. This makes support and file management a little tricky. Also, online changes are difficult compared to Rockwell controllers. By default, the program and variables will re-initialize after a change is downloaded. You can program B&R in ladder, but the example file I've seen was done in C and we were taught how to use Basic during training. The C program was difficult for me to see what the program was doing, and clunky for cross-referencing variables. The only plus I remember was a strong motion/servo package.

PPS-PZ said:

[..] it seems that ethernet powerlink is a very proprietary system that I'd have trouble using third party hardware with.

Click to expand...

PPS-PZ said:

Also, what I've heard are nightmare stories about not getting sufficient support, people getting locked into revs of software, cost of software and upgrades, etc. Stuff that sounds a lot like Rockwell horror stories.

Click to expand...

I have to ask, when you have such reservations already, how come you are even considering B&R ?

JesperMP said:

I have to ask, when you have such reservations already, how come you are even considering B&R ?

Click to expand...

I suppose I want to weigh the pros and cons and decide if the cons are cons I'd be willing to accept and live with. Nobody's perfect, not even the technology providers we use (in spite of what they may tell us). I want to minimize my risk in the next provider we use and make a solid, educated decision. Every piece of equipment we install at a customer's site represents the quality of work that we do. Support is inevitable and I need to know that the plc and related hardware is reasonable to deal with from all aspects, not just how it works for me before we ship a unit.

B&R has good products, but is a small operation in the US. Knowing the size, it is important to find out how much they stock in the US, what their support network is like near your major customers, what kind of repair do they do at their facility in the US. You do not want to have to send a controller overseas for a rush repair 5 years down the road...

PPS-PZ said:

My company is an OEM of packaging equipment. We have a long history using Rockwell products but are switching gears and looking for other technology providers to use on our equipment. B&R has been a serious consideration of ours for some time, but I still can't determine what the general public's opinion is of them. I go to shows and industry meetings and get very mixed feelings.

Anyone have history with B&R? What are some of your opinions?

Thanks!

Click to expand...

I worked for an OEM in the UK that used B&R, the reliability of screens and PLC CPU's was shocking, their support and stocking philosophy was even worse.

I would have to have a VERY good reason to even consider looking towards such a small player in the PLC market when there are so many more established manufacturers out there to choose from.

IMHO leave well alone.

I cannot help but think that maybe Beckhoff is a better option for PPS-PZ.

The price is less than half as compared to AB.
They support practically every kind of fieldbus (though not Ethernet Powerlink).
Some people practically rave about Beckhoff.
They are particularly well aimed for the machine builders. Can do both motion and safety over PLC and networks.
As for reliability, I have heard somewhat mixed stories. According to one person, you must expect that there are defective modules in a shipment (!). However, after the system has been properly tested and defective parts ironed out, it runs reliably enough.
All af this is something I have heard, not experienced myself.

I can say that Beckhoff USAs tech support is extreemly responsive. We haven't had any problems with their IO modules. We mainly use Beckhoff as field IO on AB controllers on Devicenet and Ethernet/IP. US stock and availability is excellent.

As an example of tech support responsiveness, we recently had a challenge with a particular variable in a process that we were using Beckhoff IO on to try and avoid building a custom signal conditioner. Bechkoff tech support constructed a simulation in their lab and spent the better part of a week testing a unique module configuration to find us a solution. I was impressed that they would do that for something that was a one time need.

I've heard good things about Beckhoff as well and think I'm going to at least contact them.

I know I started the thread about B&R, but since it is straying with the mention of Beckhoff; does anyone have experience with Rexroth? Good or bad?

tragically1969 said:

I worked for an OEM in the UK that used B&R, the reliability of screens and PLC CPU's was shocking, their support and stocking philosophy was even worse.

I would have to have a VERY good reason to even consider looking towards such a small player in the PLC market when there are so many more established manufacturers out there to choose from.

IMHO leave well alone.

Click to expand...

We have two machines with B&R controllers here. I have no backups of the software, so I contacted them to enquire about programming software. £1800 - so I asked if they could give me a quote on a service visit to do the backups. No response, nothing. I got the receipt to say my e-mail had been read but not so much as a refusal - nothing. I wouldn't touch their gear with a long stick if that's an example of the product support I can expect...

As i recall the CPU's use compiled code so you cant get anything out of them anyway even if you did have the software.

I think you may be able to get something out of the smaller range but certainly not the backplate style 2005 (?) series.

I had dealings with another company that had developed a solution using the B&R touchscreens which have embedded IO and can run Logic, they delivered 5 to site, the next batch that came in would not accept the existing program, turns out that the firmware was different and you needed the next release of Software to program them...no mention of it at point of order or on delivery of the units !!

Some of the CPU's even have fans on them, on a PLC for heavens sake !!

Like i said i would have to have a VERY good reason to even consider looking at them, they are just too small a company with quirky hardware to be of any use in mainstream applications.

The chioce of CAN or Ethernet Powerlink, and some other weird proprietry backplate extension Bus, that says it all !!

Rant over ;-)