cardosocea
Member
My biggest complaint with AB products is the software licensing. It's hugely expensive and painful just to get the RSLogix 5000 on two computers, and there are so many editions of the software, some with limited features, etc. that it becomes a nightmare just to connect to a PLC. I think it would even be OK to charge a bit more for the hardware so they could give the software away free, or at a very reduced rate... I doubt that would hurt their bottom line at all, and it would make lots of people's lives so much easier. Make people happy: they buy more of your products!
I would like to gain experience with the Siemens platform and some others too.
This is the weakest point with AB IMO and why I call them fancy smart relays because the true potential of the PLC's is locked behind the software license to actually use the PLC fully.
Yes, Joe and Bubba want to put food on the table working the graveyard shift, but there's plenty of logic nowadays that they don't (or shouldn't) have to see to understand which sensor broke and is that hidden logic where the text based coding would come in handy.