Allen Bradley

Tried about two years ago to get RS micro logix software paid for in full by ME registered so I could work out a problem on a customer's PLC.
Gave up in DISGUST (NO I should not have to call some help line in India)
I have worked on Siemens Hitachi Delta Goldstar and Mitsubishi PLC's.
I am always able to connect possibly with some com port fiddling or Ba?? scratching. It should not be this HARD!! You are the MARKET LEADER YOU THINK.It is so simple!
Have your code register in terms of computers, The Groom the Best man your Mother in law the Father of the bride and the reason we are getting married etc. Today after 5 hours of down time for the customer and swearing. I recommended a Delta PLC. Free software and the hardware is half the price of AB gear and probably made in the same factory.
Came home and thought. I will have another go at registering. Much to my "surprise" I get "Activation was not successful there are not enough installs for a new host" I ONLY WANT 1
:angr:

I never have problems. Go figure.

Me neither...and I have probably registered in excess of six digits US$ worth of RA software only for tha past year or so...

Feel better ?

For what it's worth, ControlLogix, PLC-5, and SLC-500 are made in USA, with MicroLogix at RA Singapore. No RA controllers are made in China. I've heard people tell me they have found Taiwan stickers on some controllers but all of those people went silent when asked for part numbers or photographs.

RA has local offices for sales and support in India. RA does not have any 'call centers' in India, though there are folks in their call centers in the USA, UK, and Australia who have accents, just like everyone else.

RA software works for a week after installation with no activation.

If you only own one license, you have to "re-host" it so that it's available for a new computer.

And if you are working with the ML800 family, which is what WOULD be equivalent to a Delta PLC, then the software IS free. Look for Connected Components Workbench. It's a LOOOOONG download over the internet, but it is free. CCW is also the same thing you use now to program all of the VFDs and Soft Starters as well the PanelView Component line (the one that goes with the ML800 family).

Ken Roach said:

Feel better ?

Click to expand...

I'm sure that I will in a moment.

Currently I'm installing RSNetworx 21 because we were bit by the same EDS Wizard infinite loop bug as others have (http://www.plctalk.net/qanda/showthread.php?t=78835). The "solution" is to upgrade to V21. Great.

The week before it was configuring a network that one of our electricians hosed (actually he got two of them in one fell swoop). My partner worked on that for a couple of days until I could get up there and figure it out.

Not that I am particularly brilliant with RSNetworx, it was more of a case where we had an ADN module that needed to be replaced the week before that and I had to call my partner in to bail me out. Against all odds, I picked up a trick or two from that event.

And last Sunday it was trying to configure a new MKS CDN466 on an existing network. It took until midnight, mostly because I kept getting "Invalid data segment contents" when I tried to upload the configuration to the module. This went on until I switched to a terminal way off in the factory that had been "upgraded" to RSNetworx v10. Either moving my operation there, or tweaking my data size (against the advice of RSNetworx) "fixed" it. I now saw data coming in. Great, so I went home and slept in.

Somehow during the operation, the Wago blocks that were on the existing network went off into the weeds without so much as an Error 78. Two hours of downtime.

My partner eventually cycled power to the Wagos and they mostly came up (remember, all this time the DNB module was flashing "OK" so there was no particular reason to cycle power on the Wagos). We still have individual I/O on the Wagos that don't work, but it isn't holding up the show at the moment so we are letting sleeping dogs lie. But I blame Wago for this. Mostly.

The kicker is that I *never* touched the Wagos. I did get the various blocks on the network current with updated EDS files, but that was it. So it was pretty much the equivalent of an electronic drive-by shooting.

My partner on the other hand has spent the last six Sundays in the plant trying to get a PowerFlex 755 to run. It first came in with a dead control board, to which Rockwell said we would have pay for a service call for them to come out and replace it. Then it had various startup/stability problems until last Sunday an AB guy came out and took the drive out of Volts/Hz mode and put it into Flux-vector mode. He swears up and down that this is the normal way of running this drive. Riiiggghhtttt.... Oddly enough, the PowerFlex 750 that I installed on the roof is running Volts/Hz quite happily.

So don't take it personal Ken, I for one really do appreciate your help when we have problems with Rockwell stuff and would hate to lose it. I just wish I wouldn't have to rely on it as much.

In all fairness, the other automation manufacturers has problems as well. For instance, while GE's hardware is generally rock-solid, they couldn't come up with a decent programming platform if their life depended on it. So, when it works, I would rather work on Rockwell stuff.

Yeah, I do feel better. Thanks!

rootboy said:

...

My partner on the other hand has spent the last six Sundays in the plant trying to get a PowerFlex 755 to run. It first came in with a dead control board, to which Rockwell said we would have pay for a service call for them to come out and replace it. Then it had various startup/stability problems until last Sunday an AB guy came out and took the drive out of Volts/Hz mode and put it into Flux-vector mode. He swears up and down that this is the normal way of running this drive. Riiiggghhtttt.... Oddly enough, the PowerFlex 750 that I installed on the roof is running Volts/Hz quite happily.

Click to expand...

There has GOT to be a lot more to this story... the 755 is no different than any other drive, it can spit out Scalar control, SVC, FVC, FOC, whatever it takes to get the job done. What it MIGHT be is that the APPLICATION needed Flux Vector Control in order to give him the performance he was looking for. Comparing performance of a VFD on something like a winder application to a VFD on a rooftop air handler fan is comparing apples to oranges. Without information on the nature of the application, there is no way to know what possible issues were involved and what kind of performance was being demanded.

PowerFlex755 Suspect

We have been installing industrial robust and deterministic PLC controls from Allen Bradley since early 1980's.

In December of 2011, we built a just in time assembly line with AB Powerflex 4M and Powerflex 700 VFD's in place. The PLC and 20 VFD's performed flawlessly.

In December or 2012, we modified the line for increased and diverse product capability. Two Powerflex 755 drives installed. Major monetary loss in infant mortality realized. We got through the initial nightmare. Months later, there was the first Powerflex 755 failure. We, and our customer have bled hundreds, of thousands of dollars due to the lack of reliable VFD control. There have been four total unexplained Powerflex 755 failures in the same environment where the 4M and 700 drives keep on delivering robust Allen Bradley uptime expectations.

Rockwell tells us that we have miss-applied, or miss-programmed the drives.

I am AB died-in-the-blue, but PowerFlex 755 is off of our design list.

Plastic said:

I am AB died-in-the-blue, but PowerFlex 755 is off of our design list.

Click to expand...

Nobody is good at everything.

jdbrandt said:

Nobody is good at everything.

Click to expand...

Rockwell included

Having migrated several plants from 700S to 755's for web handling, there is a bit of a learning curve with the 755's. However, once properly configured, they've been as rock solid as the aforementioned 700s...

The only recent head scratch-er I've experienced was commissioning 70+ Kinetix 6500 series axes. Having done 6000's on sercos for years, our first foray into the 6500 was painful. Initially, we started experiencing frequent loss of the safe-off board. Turns out the manufacturer did a poor job on the internal edge connectors causing intermittent loss of connectivity. To AB's credit, they replaced all 70+ drives within two weeks. The second episode involved endless ring failures and unexplained comm dropouts. Turned out that the 600V shielded Ethernet cables from AB had the metal RJ45 jacket machined 1/8" too long such that when inserted all the way into the female jack on the drives, the male jacket intermittently shorted out the jack. The fix was simply to insert the RJ45 connector then tug on it to pull it back out of the jack a bit, until we could make our own shielded cables. Nobody's perfect, but AB does a good job of working to fix most problems and their tech support has always been solid in 20+ years of working with them.

If you work in this area, you are going to run into @!^@# issues with one software or another I can't say RA is any worse than any others.

Not sure what OP's issue is, com? Activation? RA support line in the US is always answer by US based rep, not sure about down under though.

Also, this bears repeating,

1. Always try to work out your software and com issue before you get on site if all possible.
2. Let your customer know before hand if a software platform is new to you. Build expectation on time needed.

Delta? That's HQ'ed in Taiwan. I don't get the hate of stuff built in China. Heck, isn't iPad/iPhone build in China too?

I just wanted to chime in to confirm that our plant has had a hell of a time with our 755 drives as well. We've replaced at least 10 in the last 2 years while 700's have ticked along flawlessly for years, some buried bottom to top in sawdust.

You guys may be right, that it's a programming issue, and if so, I'd love to learn what we're doing wrong.

jraef said:

There has GOT to be a lot more to this story... the 755 is no different than any other drive, it can spit out Scalar control, SVC, FVC, FOC, whatever it takes to get the job done. What it MIGHT be is that the APPLICATION needed Flux Vector Control in order to give him the performance he was looking for. Comparing performance of a VFD on something like a winder application to a VFD on a rooftop air handler fan is comparing apples to oranges. Without information on the nature of the application, there is no way to know what possible issues were involved and what kind of performance was being demanded.

Click to expand...

Well, I haven't been out to his RTO (I have my own to worry about) so all I can do is repeat what he has told me. The drive is running a fan, so it is a very basic application. Speed control is off of a PID loop, but during the startup phase, he (to the best of my knowledge) was running it at a set frequency. The drive would hit that frequency, and continue to ramp up.

We aren't concerned with the speed of the motor other than it produces the pressure that we need to maintain flow to the RTO. Like I said, a very basic application.

And since the startup was done open-loop, there is no application to worry about. We are still of the opinion that the drive has some hardware issues with this drive that didn't get solved by replacing the board.