Beckhoff...

We are looking at doing some upgrades and retro-fitting some of our older equipment and before we just go with the usual AB. I am looking at what other options are available. I am just wondering what everyones thoughts and opinions are on Beckhoff controls, and previous experiences good or bad... Thanks.

Are you currently using AB and are satisfied with it? Are you thinking of changing just for the sake of changing?

For the most part I am satisfied with AB, I would just like to see what else is out there before making a decision. We currently have a mix of equipment (AB, Siemens, Direct Logic, Custom Software On IPC's). Ideally I would prefer to have 1 type of system to run the whole show but that is currently just not the case. I would say right now about 50% of our equipment uses AB. Im not sayin I wouldn't or I'm not going to go that route I would just like to find out more about whats out there...

I use Beckhoff buss terminals with ethernet and/or devicenet buss couplers with AB ControlLogix PLCs. They play very well together and are very easy to configure and use, especially when using Ethernet/IP.

If you are integrating to a SLC500 platform and using unipolar analog bus terminals you may have some difficulty working with Beckhoff's 16 bit unsigned integers (0 to 65535) since SLCs don't support unsigned integer, but there are tedious software workarounds. Otherwise they play well with SLCs via devicenet.

Beckhoff has a very good selection of IO terminals and specialty IO modules. Its reliable and a lot less expensive. The documentation needs improvement but Beckhoff's USA tech support team is really helpful and knowledgeable about integrating their products with AB - don't know about in Canada.

I can't say anything bad about them (others might have had a different experience).

I use lots of beckhoff IO drops with Logix systems. So far, we have used the controlnet, ethernet/ip, modbus rtu and modbus tcp dumb io drops. We also use beckhoff controllers as Ethernet/IP slaves to our logix systems, and it aggregates data from modbus rtu and modbus tcp networks.

I can tell you that we have a few machines that use the Beckhoff light bus type of I/O (BK2000) and I would shove a white hot needle in my eye before I would ever include the Beckhoff in one of my systems.

We got some new pieces of equipment for an expansion last year that had the newest version of the light bus and it was plagued with problems just as bad as the equipment that is 12 years old.

I do not have any experience with other Beckhoff products.

Like TConnolly I Use Beckhoff buss terminals with Ethernet I/P.I work fine with AB logix and Omron CJ2 PLCs.
Very easy to setup with AB.(very painful with Omron).very small size and low price.