Annoying responses to good questions.

First off, I use this forum often and have found a lot of good advice. My intent here is not to start a whining session, but I have to get this out there.

**My main problem with this forum is that we have fellow engineers/techs/ whatever..that are asking for specific advice or information. Whenever they are asking about something that is legacy, the only response that they receive is "Your system is stupid, why don't you just upgrade?" I have to say, I am tired of reading this response.

We all know, that in a perfect world, where money grows on trees, and for some reason we have the ability to shut down equipment for months at a time, we would all love to upgrade to modern hardware/software. Unfortunately, that is most often not the case.

And to most of the people who leave this response, you probably are used to dealing with small systems and tools where upgrades are not a problem. I for example, who have received the "Upgrade" response a couple times now, and have read this as a response to dozens others, have entire plants that still run on legacy equipment. You can understand why going to my boss and saying, "Why don't we just spend half a billion dollars and shut the plant down for a year so we can upgrade" is ridiculous.

Bottom line...If you do not have a relevant answer to someone's question; just keep your comments to yourself.

End of Rant.

Hmm, I haven't noticed that. I usually only pay attention to the S5 legacy stuff, but I recall that people have been pretty helpful.

The answer given to upgrade is more often then not very relevant and the best answer but not always the only answer. I don't recall anyone saying "your system is stupid, you need to upgrade". Can you give us an example ( point to a thread)?

Most times people are very helpful. However; I have sensed the propensity for solving some problems with an upgrade. The above comment is right on. I have customers that still run "old" stuff. It runs reliably and it makes them money day after day. I used to keep an old Win 95 machine behind the seat of my truck, it has since become so valuable I now keep in in the office locked up for the reasons noted in some of the recent posts.

I can see where you are coming from, but from the outside if someone posts (for example earlier today about PC's with ISA slots) we do not know if they are posting about single PC talking to one single PLC in a small system they inherited when their company bought someone out. Or if they are talking about a multi-billion dollar plant. Now we could first spend the next two weeks slowly drawing out enough imformation so that we would only supply good answers or we could make a few assumptions in the hope that something someone said may help the original poster. If I needed help I know I would prefer heaps of suggestions that I could go thru and then decide which to use possibly even pointing out something that I had overlooked rather than just one response.

If the best course action, as evident from a single post, is to upgrade, that's what people will recommend. Of course, they may not know the entire story or the complex nature of the system in question.

As with any internet post asking for advice, people can only see what is posted and have to assume the rest. If an answer if off the mark, say so and say why, thank for the help and move on.

Besides all of the above, in many cases it really DOES make more sense to upgrade.

Products have life-cycles. Deal with it.

The PLC-5 System from AB for example was a wonderful platform, but it is in retirement. Yes, you can keep it going with costly replacement parts, and costly repairs. What is say a PLC-5/40E processor going for now, AB Catalog price? $10,000 ? $12,000 ? In that neighborhood?

For the same price, you can at least get a Logix5000 processor, rack, and comms cards, and begin to migrate to a more recent platform.

Ditto other older equipment. SLC-100/150? Not worth trying to keep going, better to plan replacement now. Siemens S5 gear? Ditto.

That applies to a great deal of equipment as well. Not just PLC's, but computers (as noted in one post here, still NEED ISA slots?... Time to start planning for the future). Drives... Why keep repairing that old ERC Piece of trash?

Another point is, someone asks a question, and in the FREE, NO Compensation forum, people offer their best OPINION. In my case, it is often the same response I'll give to my boss in a similar situation...
"I'm done patching it, we either replace it, or do without".

And a bit more information ...

Management is asking more and more of automation systems - most of which were not meant for that series of control system to do. How do expect to get a serious answer on how to accomplish a problem or solution when the equipment is not meant to do so?

You can ask for your 1967 Corvette Stingray to play CD's, but the radio of the time was not designed to do so. You could break into it and put adapter after bandage and possibly get it to work, but in all reality, it is better and cheaper to upgrade to a unit that is meant to play CD's.

I'd really like to see an example of a thread where you felt the response was "your system is stupid", whether literally or figuratively. I'm not an old timer here, but I think I've read enough threads to opinion that 95% of the posts here are made with good intentions and with the OPs best interest in mind. Especially considering the number of posts daily from those that simply haven't done their homework and are asking for a spoonfed solution. Even those posts are met with a level of professionalism, and members often go out of their way to 'teach' the OP something helpful, to enable them to think through the process vs simply doing their work for them.

OK, here are a few examples, granted I can't spend my whole day searching. I'll admit, the word "stupid" was not used, I was just referring to the sometimes sarcastic and snooty remarks. Even when people say that upgrading is not an option, someone tells them to "just upgrade". People need advice to their current issues, not someone telling them to upgrade their obsolete equipment. I left out posts and names.


It's for reasons of obsolescence like that, among many, many others, that you need to be converting that old PLC2 to something more supportable...


Quote:
As far as replacing the PLC2s is concerned, this is an option if you work for a company that has money and is willing to spend it, but this isn't an option at where I work.

That means they're ready to spend even more when the process goes down and you can't get parts or support anymore?? When you PLAN an upgrade/replacement, you can schedule it to be most convenient. You can't schedule when it will let the magic smoke out...


Ya know... I'm surprised nobody has mentioned this yet...

Just as you're having to deal with the obsolesence of the hardware that the software requires, you also need to deal with the obsolesence of the PLC3! You really need to be looking at converting that to something that can be supported!

Quote:
Ya know... I'm surprised nobody has mentioned this yet...

Just as you're having to deal with the obsolesence of the hardware that the software requires, you also need to deal with the obsolesence of the PLC3! You really need to be looking at converting that to something that can be supported!

Easy to suggest, but many time in the real world hard to make so.

As you may know, sometimes when you have issues with a Clgx and RIO, you will get posts suggesting changing racks to C-Net.

Again, easy to suggest, not practical to do in the real world with a working plant

kbpatton said:

Again, easy to suggest, not practical to do in the real world with a working plant

Click to expand...

I am going to end with this ...

If you are desiring help with a legacy system, expect legacy help. Anyone with a legacy system should expect to do a lot of research and digging to find a solution to their problem. Just asking for help on a forum and getting a real solution is a slim chance - like winning the lottery (ok well probably a bit better chance).

If you feel that you got a smart ___ answer, then the question was probably far fetched to begin with. 95% to 99% of the people on this board are professionals and not maliciously chastizing people. Sometimes the smartest/best solution is not the one that is desired or requested.

In today's economy, it is becoming more and more popular to reason with "it's not broke, so why replace it?" Sometimes this reasoning can work in the short term, but it delays the capital spend to upgrade. Equipment (and PLC's) do wear out and become unsupportable. Finding a resource to support legacy equipment gets to be even more remote.

You must be aware of the socalled "Bathtub curve". At a certain point, fixing an existing system becomes uneconomical both in terms of how much it cost to fix, but also in terms of that breakdowns will become too frequent.

Certainly, these are both options, to fix a broken legacy equipment or to upgrade to a newer platform. It is a matter of weighing pros and cons of each.
To say "Upgrade is not an option" is not professional. Even for equipment that is running 24/7 it is always possible to plan for a complete upgrade. I have done a couple of upgrade projects where we exchanged obsolete equipment 100%. It is typically done when there is a scheduled stop anyway for maintenance or weekend or holiday. If that is not possible, you can do the upgrade in slices.

Since PLC2 and PLC3 were mentioned, I must say that I can only respect trying to fix these, if it is just a stopgap before a complete exchange for something newer. I havent read the previous threads, but I can understand that if the topics were PLC2 and PLC3 systems, then it is a reasonable comment to say that these systems should be replaced when it is convenient.

NB. When you embed quotes, please put a marker that indicates who says what. It makes it so much more readable.

NB NB. Do not reuse ANYTHING from the old PLC2 or PLC3 systems. It is not worth it.

It's not just these old legacy systems, many recent platforms are continuously being updated, for example, rsl5000, you buy version 14.xx only to find that 3 weeks later your up to v 15.xx, your supplier uses the latest version & you can't open up the file.
Had simular problems even with the more stable platforms of mitsubishi.
Last week, went to a seminar only to find out that the "Q" range has changed no not just added extra processors but now some have been replaced, this means when ordering spares I also have to upgrade my software as these new processors are not recognised at all even using the original file & software.
I have only just upgraded GX & IEC developer + E-Designer.
Now I have to start again.
I know that not all these is the fault of mitsi but the new compliance on materials for recycling have caused many manufacturers to upgrade their systems on this basis (they would be fools to not include other enhancements as well).
This also goes for many other types of software like autocad, word... the list goes on.
However at least some of the other software companies do have facilities to save files as previous versions.
While at the seminar I asked the question if the later Small Q series would have USB ports, the answer was no, but the larger would not have RS232 but Ethernet instead.
So what they are saying is: RS232 is dead so not putting it on the Q6-25 range & on the other hand, the lower range will be 232 only. Is 232 dead or not!
This could cause me problems, as hmi's on the larger platorms use 232, this means that I either upgrade the HMi's when the processor goes down or add an extra card for 232 comms, not easy when the rack is full.
New processor, new HMI, new 232 comms + software means a costly upgrade when you include the downtime as well.

Bottom line...If you do not have a relevant answer to someone's question; just keep your comments to yourself.

Click to expand...

Well, first you are asking for the person that read your post to also evaluate carefully before giving you an answer because it may be in this particular case not relevant... and how can one know? no one is in your position except you. And you are looking for an answer.

So, even if the answer seems at your eyes not relevant, you can use the forum to get tendencies. If all the people in the world that talks in the forum says you have to upgrade... well, maybe it's worth to consider the option, even if expensive...

On the other hand, you can use the forum, also the stupid and irrelevant answers like a brainstorm session, and maybe it will open your eyes to things you didn't even thought about...