Schneider Products

I've been working as a Instrumentation tech and designer for the last 8 years and recently took the plunge into sales. Since the people on here are the end users and integrators I am interested in your thoughts and opinions of Schneider's offerings. Specific to the North American region but all opinions are welcome. HMIs/ The little Zelio/ M340 and Quantum. I really just want to get a general opinion and where Schneider can improve either product or support. Thanks in advance for your comments, good or bad

They could use a lot of help on their website. The navigation is horrible! I have spent 15 minutes clicking & searching for information and wind up back where I started 99% of the time. That's why I seldom use Schneider.
/rant off.

RDS said:

They could use a lot of help on their website. The navigation is horrible! I have spent 15 minutes clicking & searching for information and wind up back where I started 99% of the time. That's why I seldom use Schneider.
/rant off.

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Absolutely +1 !!!

I've had the same experience as the other 2 in the past but just now I looked and under "Products and Services>by product categories" seemed to have most items that I would be looking for laid out wonderfully. Maybe this is new?

The PLC manuals are cumbersome to use.

The Altivar VFDs the I've seen weren't very reliable, and service/support was bad. Haven't used them in a couple of years.

Used to love the Control Microsystems stuff, and the support out of Canada was terrific. I haven't used them for a while either.

Didn't like the Square D RVSS - has an interesting experience when one faulted "closed" and I couldn't get the motor to stop until I found the main breaker.

Our local rep was great, and his support was top notch. Factory support not so good, and I thought the support contracts were over priced.

Hated Concept, like Unity and Premium PLCs. Magellus HMI not ready for prime time - trending sucks.

Overall on the upswing, recovering from years of owner changes and bad management.

Per Tom's reply:
Schneider's programming software, as a whole, is aweful.

Mind you, I've not dealt with Unity or Concept, only ProWorx NxT and 32. Horrible PLC ladder programming and that coming from a Motorola MOSCAD/ACE programmer. The concept and layout is good for ProWorx, very useful,,,, if it worked.

I only did one project with Designer on a Megellis but it was about as clunky.

I kept up a software support contract and used it. This is where Schneider shines. The support techs were great and answered my questions. Even the Schneider support techs agree that,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, enough said.

You have a great hardware solution. Why not back it up with a great software solution that us front line people can use and show clients how good Schneider Automation is?

The Schneider 'propeller heads' do not come near me any more. Unity Pro is horrible to me (some love it though) - the M340 is cumbersome to program due to this. The hardware looks OK but the software to me is awful.
Unity Pro is to me decidedly aimed at tag and FB programming - I neither like or use either.
Magellis to me is also decidedly clunky to use.
Annual maintenance costs on the software are ridiculously high to me - not the only brand with that problem though.

Some problems lend themselves to being solved with ladder, some function block, and others using structured text.

I haven't done any ladder ever in unity, it is either structured text or function block. Now that I am familiar with Unity there isn't much that I would change, so +1 for unity and the M340.

My next project is RSLogix where my limited experience with it so far leads me to believe that it is decidedly aimed at ladder programming and that function block has been bolted on.

I find the magellis HMIs and vijeo designer software to be OK - agree with comment elsewhere that trending support needs improvement.

I would never choose Citect, but always get it to do what I need after a lot of frustration.

bwhite said:

Per Tom's reply:

I kept up a software support contract and used it. This is where Schneider shines. The support techs were great and answered my questions. Even the Schneider support techs agree that,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, enough said.

You have a great hardware solution. Why not back it up with a great software solution that us front line people can use and show clients how good Schneider Automation is?

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I agree. Frankly, with all of Schneider's acquisitions recently, they do have a wide footprint, and could, if they applied themselves, nip away at the big boys in several key niche and mainline application areas.

And, I agree with Tom, I have seen Altivar drives fail quite miserably, and seen customers (end-users) struggle to get them started up. They need to go, for sure, or be re-branded, at a minimum.

We all have heard the moans and groans about high-priced support contracts and software license fees, and this is the weak spot that could be attacked by a competitor who has a wide hardware offering.

No giant is un-slayable.

My opinion, of course.

Hello Guys
I use M340 and Unity since their introduction, and for me, these are the best products on the market today
I installed them in many countries: Brazil, Russia, Poland, Morocco, France etc..
and I had no problems with suppliers.
The UNITY software is both user-friendly and powerful
I think the prices for M340 are very reasonable
I use mainly the Ethernet connection and the CAN bus
For the H.M.I. I use VIJEO-DESIGNER with XBTGT7340 (15")
No problem with them.
For drives I prefer to use LENZE under CAN bus
It's my opinion (of course)
Gérard PERRIN