GE vs. AB

Sorry, was not sure where to post this. Hopefully some of
you can give me some advice, thinking about changing jobs!
Have an excellent opportunity to deal with GE plc's, have been doing
AB for 10+ yrs, have not dealt a lot with GE?

I understand protocols and logic very well. Would it be
easy to pick up the GE simplicity and software?

Thank you i know this is a vague question, any advice
would be helpful...

I have not used GE But have been self taught on a huge range of other PLC's
If you understand the I/O Allocation Table the logic is almost identical.
The only issue is the lack of (addition of) common control items.
In a lot of cases you write code to create certain functions.
These are sometimes standard on other PLC's
(Omron Step Next, or Allways On / Off Functions)
When I first started programming AB it took me a short time to find the 'S' registers

I have experience with both GE and AB, GE is a very powerful and reliable platform, but in my opinion their ladder editor is extremely archaic. The ladder editor itself really hasn't changed since the DOS days of Logicmaster, the programming software has been updated, and is useful yet the ladder editor is a POS. Now there is an advantaged to this architecture, you can import VersaPro and Logimaster files in to the current programming software (Cimplicity Machine Edition, or Proficy Machine Edition...they change names too!), which makes upgrading older software to new software easy.

But, you'll miss AB's double-click setup of instructions, you'll miss pre-defined instruction functions (There is no .PRE or .TT of a timer for example), I am not sure if GE is has the ability for user-defined tags yet, and I am unsure if they have any equivalent to an Add-On instruction. But, they do have quad-redundancy if you need that (Rx7i platform). It's been a year since I touched the platform, and that was the 9030 series. The Rx3i/Rx7i are the "ControlLogix" equivalents.

It would be easy to pickup the software and the platform, but you'll cringe when you realize how much of the "take for granted" items in AB that you miss.

We have found that supporting GE plcs is almost as bad as supporting Siemens PLCs when it comes to communications. In fact now that there is Profinet, Siemens PLCs are easier to communicate with than GE plcs. One of our customers that monitors this forum had a heck of a time getting GE ethernet to work. The GE people were not much help. It is easy to setup Rockwell Ethernet/IP communications.

Peter Nachtwey said:

We have found that supporting GE plcs is almost as bad as supporting Siemens PLCs when it comes to communications. In fact now that there is Profinet, Siemens PLCs are easier to communicate with than GE plcs. One of our customers that monitors this forum had a heck of a time getting GE ethernet to work. The GE people were not much help. It is easy to setup Rockwell Ethernet/IP communications.

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I second Peter's comments I have used Rockwell in the past and am now using GE (Rx3i). They have some interesting features and some very interesting undocumented enhancements (read bugs). Be prepared to pull out some hair (until you get used to GE's idiosyncrasy's)

A PLC is a PLC... they all do the same thing, just how you get there is strange in some

If it were I ..... I would jump at the chance, this will give you the opportunity to learn more and will do nothing but make you a better programmer/troubleshooter

My last boss could not stand when I built a new machine, I would use a different brand PLC everytime, I liked learning

geniusintraining said:

My last boss could not stand when I built a new machine, I would use a different brand PLC everytime, I liked learning

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No offense, but a business isn't run just to provide learning opportunities. If you worked for me you wouldn't have been allowed to change brands unless you could show me a good business reason (i.e. benefit or profit to the company) for doing so.

We did a lot of things as learning experiences - sort of mini R&D projects. But they were specifically done so we could determine the effect of a new technology or explore the benefits or problems of a new system. I never allowed this kind of thing to infringe on the profitability of the core business, because that is what put food on everyone's plate. I certainly wouldn't allow someone to play around just for the heck of it!

I second what Paully's5.0 said !!

Tom Jenkins said:

No offense, but a business isn't run just to provide learning opportunities. If you worked for me you wouldn't have been allowed to change brands unless you could show me a good business reason (i.e. benefit or profit to the company) for doing so.

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None taken... and I agree, I would of fired myself a long time ago

I was board out of my mind and needed something to keep me going, they new what and why I was doing it and did not have a problem... just as long as I was there to support it and did not leave, I knew the rest of the plant and keep the place running and making money, thats was all they cared about

So it was like on the job training

Some small production companies that had been AB strongholds for years are now looking at cheaper PLC options.
They are openly sick of AB's money making process.

iant said:

Some small production companies that had been AB strongholds for years are now looking at cheaper PLC options.
They are openly sick of AB's money making process.

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Not a point that really relates to the topic at hand...but I'll bite.

As for AB's money making process, while I see people's dis-taste for the price tag of AB's product, I'll pay the price every time simply for the insurance. Insurance meaning if I have a problem or a question of any of their products I have multiple sources of information I can access. 1 - Literature Library, 2 - Knowledge Base, 3 - Tech support. Not to mention, product supply. GE can't hold a candle to AB's support. I have accessed GE's literature library, I have accessed their knowledge base, and I have left messages with their tech support only to receive a response call hours later. The best help I have received is from the local vendor because they have GE experts on staff.

I should be clear, this type of insurance is critical for large scale plant operations. If your OEM machine can be turned on and off with minimal impact on plant production, and you can afford machine downtime while you figure out the problems, then yes, small cheap PLCs is the best business plan for you.

I am a A-B guy but I got handed a job that had a G-E RX3i.
If you know A-B then you really won't have that much of a problem with GE. Some things and commands on the GE take some getting used to. Some things that others have are completely lacking in the GE unless you do your own custom functions. I agree with the previous comments about lack of support. It may also depend on where you are located. From what I understand the oil industry uses a lot of GE products.

I am not in favor of multiple PLC sites BUT if that is what the customer wants that is what they will get.
I was reffering to AB's $800+ per year for factory talk-

I also ran into too many "undocumented features" of the GE programming software. Compared to AB, I found it to be quite painful. People that I talked to with more GE experience said they didn't mind it after the initial learning curve, but the programming environment leaves alot to be desired.

Thank you all, that is all good advice. I welcome the opportunity to
experience a new platform, also I wont be able to dazzle and wazzle
right away as I know the in's and outs of AB.

I guess I am spoilt with the AB architecture. Then again,
I realize if I worked for a build shop, we would have
to be versed with anything that the customer specifies!

I will post an update here pretty soon, which way I go,
for now, thank you all once again, a lot of good intelligent
arguments and comments