The future of the Powerflex 4 and Powerflex 40 Drives

Good Evening ,

We have a ton of Powerflex 40 and Powerflex 4 Drives in the plant. What is the future of the Powerflex 40's and 4's ?

What about the Powerflex 70' and 700's ?

Thanks ,

The "official" status of all your RA equipment can be found here. At a glance, it looks like:

Powerflex 4M: Active
Powerflex 4/40/40P: Mixed bag between Active, Active Mature, and a handful of discontinued
Powerflex 70: Active
Powerflex 700: Active Mature
Powerflex 700S: Mostly discontinued
Powerflex 700L: Active

Anecdotally, I don't believe there's any new development going into those drives and I don't think RA are much interested in pursuing them further. This is just based on comments made by various vendors and tech support reps when trying to buy or set up these drives.

If it were my factory, I'd not allow any new equipment to come in with these drives. I'd be specifying the 520 series for smaller drives, and the 750 series for larger drives, across the board. But, I don't think you need to stress about replacing any existing ones right away. They should still be available for purchase for quite a long time where like-for-like replacement is in order.

PF4 (not 4M) and 40/40P are still available for sale, but the pricing will continue to rise as they scale down production commitments with the factory in favor of the newer (PF520 series) products that replaced them. By raising the pricing they are trying to steer users away from starting new project development with them. it is already cheaper to buy a PF525 than a PF40, or a PF523 instead of a PF4.

The PF4M will remain in the stable for a few more years to come simply because it's the cheapest "shaft turner" that they have for people that only want that.

70s and 700s are in a similar position as the 4/40; replaced by PF750 series, so no further development and an ever increasing price structure to encourage users to move to the new product lines. The 70 hung on a little longer than normal because the PF750 was not available in 240V until last year, but now that it is, the 70 is on borrowed time. The only thing that keeps the 70 from being "Active Mature" yet at this point is the factory NEMA 4 package option, which is not yet available in the 750 series but is on the way I've been told. I would not start anything new with a 70 or 700 unless matching existing lines is of critical importance to you.

Thanks for your thoughts and advice.

How would you define ......
Active
Active Mature
End of Life

For 2020 , I plan on replacing alot of SLC 500's with CompactLogix. How long
can I take to replace roughly 30 SLC 500 systems ? I know many have these components , Ebay , etc.

Thanks ,

Rob S. said:

Thanks for your thoughts and advice.

How would you define ......
Active
Active Mature
End of Life

For 2020 , I plan on replacing alot of SLC 500's with CompactLogix. How long
can I take to replace roughly 30 SLC 500 systems ? I know many have these components , Ebay , etc.

Thanks ,

Click to expand...

The definitions are on the web page linked by ASF. But here they are again for you (footnotes removed):
Active: Most current offering within a product category.
Active Mature: Product is fully supported, but a newer product or family exists. Gain value by migrating.
End Of Life: Discontinued date announced - actively execute migrations and last time buys. Product generally orderable until the discontinued date.
Discontinued: New product no longer manufactured or procured. Repair/exchange services may be available.


Not mentioned in that is that once a product goes to "Active Mature" status, they also stop any further product development, new accessories, etc. It also often means, in the case of VFDs, that if something was available in MCCs, they will become "Engineered", meaning an increased lead time. Such is the case now with 40s, 70s and 700s.