Cimplicity Issue...

Not really a question... I just wanted to vent a bit...

I went to a customer up in New Windsor, NY today to work on an old Marchesini cartoner. It had a GE 90-30 PLC, so I started up Cimplicity ME. I created a new 90-30 project, went online, and started to upload the program. Part way through the upload, I got an error about the CPU type in the project not matching the CPU type in the PLC (sorry, I forgot to grab a screenshot of the error). If memory serves me, it said something like the PLC CPU was a 341, while the project was a 321. Okay, so why doesn't Cimplicity correct that, and make the project match the PLC? I started out with what I thought was an blank project!...

My only choice was "OK" to close the error. Of course, now I was stuck with that lovely red "X" on the target, saying that the logic is not equal. Yet when I verified the project, I got 0 errors and 0 warnings. I can view the logic, but cannot see the 'live' status of the data. Good luck troubleshooting something when you can't watch stuff changing. Even more so when you don't have the original program with labels and comments!..

Thankfully, I still had my old LogicMaster 90 software installed on this laptop. I closed Cimplicity and fired up LM90 in a DOS box. A few keystrokes later, and I was online and watching the program running. I haven't used LM in many years, but I managed to troubleshoot the machine and find the problem in, what seemed like, less time than it takes for Cimplicity to start up...

I just find it humorous that this 'new and improved' Cimplicity software had such a hard time (and ultimately failed me), while the good ol' DOS software ran without a hitch. Ah, the good old days when things actually worked properly...



-Eric

Just to set this straight.
Cimplicity ME is VERY OLD also, (Proficy Machine Edition is the latest) not as old as LogicMaster but...
Had you kept up with the progression of the GE PLC and its software there would have not been any reason to "vent" all would have been very logical and intuitive to you.
The problem was that your "old" software needed to know what hardware it was connecting to. Yes maybe it should have been able to read the processor and adjust accordingly, but you should have been able to see what it wanted and have made the adjustment manually also.
It amazes me how "dependent" we humans have become on our software. It appears at times that we can no longer think for ourselves.

I hear you Russ, but I work with so many different brands, it's hard for me to keep up with the progression of one particular brand. I run across a GE maybe once a year. The 90-30 platform has a very large installed base, so I would expect software specifically designed to program them would not have to be told what CPU it is connected to. Actually, the software DID know what CPU it was connected to, since it listed the CPU type in the error message.

By the way, I just looked at the hardware configuration in Cimplicity, and it is configured for a CPU341, which is the CPU I was trying to connect to. What could I have changed it to???

I purchased LogicMaster back in the 90s when I did my first GE project. That was the latest software at the time. Apparently, the CPU I was trying to connect to today was from the same vintage, since LM knew what it was.

Just for fun, let's say I had never purchased LM90, and it's now 2002 (or whenever my version of Cimplicity was released). I have a pre-programmed CPU341 that I need to connect to. I ask my local GE rep. what software I need. He doesn't sell me LM90, that's obsolete. He sells me Cimplicity, since that's the most current software for my PLC. I plug it in, start an upload, and whaddya know... I get an error that says that the CPU types don't match...

I'm not trying to bash GE by any means. I realize that maintaining backwards compatibility is not easy. But when you sell something that is touted to be backwards compatible, it expect it to be just that.

I've had my share of frustration with other brands as well. Some more than others (yes, you AB)...



-Eric