Benefits and Limitations of an AB?

AB of course their support is great :D (kidding)

To me, I dont care... I will install or sell whatever the end users want, I have found that all the support I need is either on Google, this site or in the user manuals, I have said it many times a PLC is a PLC

Fair enough. Well, I've done the comparisons myself ---> Beckhoff CX to AB ControlLogix and briefly, here are my findings:

Processors: Advantage Beckhoff. Does AB have anything that compares to an Intel I7 12-core 2.1Ghz processor?

Field Bus (EtherCAT vs Sercos): Advantage Beckhoff. EtherCAT more robust and easier to use, plus twice as fast as Sercos. AB has no support for EtherCAT. So, if you've got an AB ControlLogix system, forget about EtherCAT.

I/O and hardware selections: Advantage Beckhoff. Way more to choose from with their hardware plus specialty I/O that AB doesn't have.

Analog I/O update rates: Advantage Beckhoff. 10 kHz with their XFS series analog I/O. 50kHz with their measurement module series. Does AB have anything that comes close??

Small footprint: Advantage Beckhoff. ControlLogix still using those big clunky I/O modules with the rack system.

Price: Advantage Beckhoff. No explanations needed here.

Development Software: Advantage Beckhoff. TwinCAT software is free and offer all IEC 61131 programming languages free (CodeSys IDE). AB's software is proprietary, not free, and although they do offer the option for the IEC 61131 languages, the only one that comes standard in their software is Ladder. You have to pay for the rest of them if you want them. That is the last that I knew anyway. I use at least three of the languages on a regular basis.

High speed Data Acquistion: Advantage Beckhoff. AB's platform is not designed for high speed data acquistion. If you need that with AB, then you have to integrate something (National Instruments?). With Beckhoff, its all-in-one system. It can do machine and motion control as well as high speed data acquisition. No need to integrate third party.

Safety: Advantage Beckhoff. Way more flexible and much less expensive than AB's safety.

Documentation: Advantage AB. Okay, I'm not a big fan of Infosys from Beckhoff's website so I'm giving slight edge to AB here. Everything is there in Infosys but I find it difficult to navigate and find what I need sometimes.

Support: Advantage Beckhoff. I don't care that there are a ton of AB applications engineers in my area, they don't give me the level of support that my one Beckhoff guy does. My Beckhoff guy has even written sample code for me a number of times, WebEX'd online with my machine a number of times, and will drive an hour drive to be here in a day's notice. AB doesn't do that. Their support involves configuring the hardware for you if you need help, and giving you solutions for problems in which most cases trying to sell you something additional to meet your problem with a paid solution. If a "bigger" customer calls them while they are here supporting us, well guess what? They say "see ya, gotta go".

One other thing that I will definitely give advantage AB is their Ladder editor. It is way more polished than Codesys' ladder editor. Still, not nearly a deal breaker for Beckhoff considering all else.

This is a very brief, high level, comparisons that I found.
 
You just proved my point... you are just as bad as a 'never anything but AB' guy

I could post a list of AB or Siemens thats better than Beckhoff, they are all the same and have easier or harder ways of doing the same thing in the end you just need to find what you like and are comfortable with no matter what you post you will never change a AB guys mind because his is better, just like they will never change your mind

This is one reason threads like this turn into bashing threads and get locked :p

I do respect your point of view and thanks for sharing your fondness for Beckhoff I also think they are good.
 
I'm not really interested in a which is better debate, the thing is that the OP was asking for insight on a question. Incorrect information was then given. As we are mostly professionals here, and we have a student asking for advice, it is imperative that the OP not be given incorrect information.

Without context, it is also difficult to answer such a broad question. That aside, I don't think that many here would build a new system with an SLC500, we were just trying to address the OPs question. No one is correct 100% of the time.
 
It was truly my honor to be a contributor to all your entertainment needs this AM. I'd like to thank my family, friends, colleagues, and fans. Thank you all.
 
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It was truly my honor to be a contributor to all your entertainment needs this AM. I'd like to thank my family, friends, colleagues, and fans. Thank you all.

And thanks for the information about beckhoff. I have worked on many machines with their systems, but I have never played with them. I wouldn't mind tinkering with their software.
 
And thanks for the information about beckhoff. I have worked on many machines with their systems, but I have never played with them. I wouldn't mind tinkering with their software.

TwinCAT 3
TwinCAT Tutorial
YouTube TwinCAT Tutorial Series with Structured Text

One more thing that I really like about the CX machines (some but not all), and I really want to mention, is that because they are a PC running Windows on top, this leaves some really cool options for HMI. Particularly (optionally, but not necessarily) you can write your own HMI program using MS Visual Studio in VB or C#. Beckhoff provides an API and sample code for reading and writing to the PLC from a Windows application. Since you have a DVI port (some CX machines have option for HDMI?) on the CX machine, you simply plug in a PC monitor of your choice, install your custom user interface application like you would any other Windows application, and wha-lah, you have your HMI. No need to buy proprietary HMI development software (FactoryTalkView, RSView32, etc) or $4000 PanelView Plus, etc. Visual Studio is free (your HMI development software) and a PC monitor (your HMI) can be bought at WalMart for $100. Of course, this takes technical expertise and development time, but at least this option is available with the Beckhoff machines. I've written user interface programs for three of our Beckhoff machines in this fashion and its opened doors to all sorts of cool things that simply were not possible, or at least much more difficult to do, with proprietary HMI software. Plus, as stated, its a whole lot cheaper.
 
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I for one would like to apologize to bert123. These posts seldom get personal as this one started to get and I personally have no use for that. When it's no longer a discussion but an argument it's pointless. It becomes about wining the argument not exchanging ideas.
 
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busarider29, thanks for the prespective on Beckoff.

One thing I keep pointing out here though is that smaller company with small market share tend to have better support for "free", until, they are no longer small. I think I made that point when Inductive was at their infancy and that INfamous "why pay for PLC programming software" thread as well. In the end, nothing is "free" and one have to look at the overall cost including availability of people who can maintain the system.
 

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