Alan-Bradley vs. Siemens

PLC Kid, I understand the concept of cost=value, my point is, we already paid for the software. This is what is called after-the-sale good business practice, it is not asking for a hand-out. This is no fault of AB's and I understand that also but it goes back to the good old fashioned customer service.
Tell me if the first time you pulled into a gas station when they started charging money to air-up your tires you didn't complain. Yes, the compressor needs maintenance and yes it uses electricity, both are not free however, good customer service has a cost but in the end, it will earn you repeat customers, not customers that leave because they are feeling gouged.

Did you buy a USB Floppy yet? Or go steal one from your IT department.

You can not compare S7 1200 to Compact logix or S7 TIA Portal to RS5K.
S7 1200 is piece of $hit.Its less then ML1400.More ML1500.

If someone want to open the issue Siemens Vs AB.
Please start thread Siemens Vs AB features.
Maybe then we will know who the best.
I have list of thing why AB not Siemens.I use both.
I pay more for AB because my time is value and programming and debugging with AB is faster.

Ken Roach said:

There's a reasonable argument to be made that experienced, native-language-speaking, highly skilled support engineers should be available 24/7 for a price included in the cost of hardware.

Click to expand...

With all due respect to you Ken, there has not been a SINGLE TIME that Rockwell Support has ever, EVER resolved any issue I've been forced to call them about.

Not Once.

The few times I have not been able to come up with a work-around, or eventually puzzle through the problem myself, I've had better luck getting my distributor involved with his staff. At least they make an effort, but Rockwell Paid Support Line? Totally useless.

our site has around 99% AB and 1% siemens, and to me AB beats siemens hands down, so much easier to work on, the AB HMI's are leaps and bounds infront of anything siemens have.

and as far as support is concerned, we don't have siemens so i couldn't comment, but our rockwell 24/7/365 support is brilliant, they have never let us down, i don't tend to use it that often but the other engineers do and they always get what there after, and the support from the RA staff at the HQ is great, and the distributors over here for rockwell are the same, they have arranged for RA commercial software engineers to come to site to go through software which we already have, and have left there business cards saying if you need to know anything else then my emails on there.

infact this morning our distributor has arranged for a network engineer from RA to visit site with there stratix 8000/8300 demo box and setup some PLC's to go through all the functions and help us design the layout etc.

we had another site that closed down and i was sent the old laptop they had down there which had STEP 7 and win cc licenses on it, i rang up siemens to see if they could get me a copy of the relevant software which was maybe a couple of revisions older than there current one, and they said they would look into it, i then recieved an email the following day saying that they no longer support it and we would have to buy the software again, at least rockwell you can go all the way back to any revision you want, you may need a support contract but then again that applies to probably the majority if not all of the manufacturers, the same applied to our autocad disks, no freebies there!

ceilingwalker said:

Why not?

Click to expand...

S7-1200 is the equivalent to MicroLogix.
Control or Compact Logix, should be compared to S7-300.

I use both here, and Siemens is a bit more expensive, altought we don't choose the type of PLC to use, only because of it cost.

I do not use either ever anymore! My brand is $2500 for ALL the software, no charge for service calls, no maintenance contracts, just a $750 charge for a major new release every 2 years or so.
They even come out to site if I ever need it free of charge - I doubt they would do it for beginners or 'nuisance' customers though but you can always take you gear into their office for sorting out if needs be.
Hardware prices are good and the software is absolutely the fastest to use I have experienced. Takes me half the time to write a program with their software as compared to AB, Siemens or Schneider. Yes, they are Japanese.

Yes I agree with BobB there are other brands available, and what I choose to use offers a full range of quality products at the right price with *free support, and it is neither AB or Siemens (or for me Omron, sorry Bob) - so guys look around there are alternatives

*free if you don't include Citect

Ah Geoff - symbol programming too slow - direct I/O numbers much quicker - brought up with keyboards (read DOS stuff) and prefer to type the number straight in - not %I.***.***.*** - too ruddy slow. FBs are a pain for me - just use ladder.
I work for myself and the quicker I am out the more money I make - great incentive there.
Struggling with drag and drop stuff at the moment - FBs etc - the list goes on. Ruddy sore wrist from clicking the heck out of the mouse. Have already worn one mouse out - contacts failed on the left mouse button and were repeating - not good when programming - even worse with CAD - duplicates over everthing - spend half your time 'undoing'. Expensive mouse too.
No - not Schneider! Halfway through and would have been finished by now and on to the next one!
I do not even use a mouse with, few exceptions, with my CAD software but short cuts and a tablet - way quicker.
Same with Excel and Word by the way.
By the way, I run my PLC software and Excel together - copy, modify and paste - really quick.
Have written two programs since 4PM - now 8.30PM - slowest part of writing the program is tying in all the ruddy symbols and descriptions!

rdrast said:

With all due respect to you Ken, there has not been a SINGLE TIME that Rockwell Support has ever, EVER resolved any issue I've been forced to call them about.

Not Once.

The few times I have not been able to come up with a work-around, or eventually puzzle through the problem myself, I've had better luck getting my distributor involved with his staff. At least they make an effort, but Rockwell Paid Support Line? Totally useless.

Click to expand...

On the other end of the anecdotal spectrum: Every time I've called Tech Connect my issue has been resolved.

To the original topic, I think that requirement to have a support contract to get support is one of the most aggravating thing about R.A.
I don't mean that you should expect free 24/7 support, but definitely support within normal business hours.

That you can then get a higher level paid 'premium' support, for jumping the queue, or getting support outside business hours, that also sounds reasonable to me, but it does not excuse not having basic free support.
Since R.A. is already much more expensive than the competition (incl. Siemens) the premium support should be part of what you already paid for.

To my opinion, the quality of Siemens free support and R.A's paid support is about even (but I have to admit I have not had the need for R.A. support in years since we are moving away from R.A. in general).

ceilingwalker said:

I don’t want “stir the pot” but I have a question about Siemens vs. Allen-Bradley, PLC’s.

Click to expand...

How did that work out for ya

The Plc Kid said:

5 Reasons not to give services for free.

Click to expand...

I don't think anyone expects it for free... but we are paying for the software and paying for the hardware, so why not let customers have access to the website knowledge base, I get 5-10 calls a day for support, I have never asked to be paid for it because I supply a part and a service

Its not like we are buying a cheap PLC, we are paying a premium price

jmsmoreira said:

S7-1200 is the equivalent to MicroLogix.
Control or Compact Logix, should be compared to S7-300.

Click to expand...

Where did he say he was comparing the S7 1200 to a CLX?

I don't know why everyone is arguing over support. I rarely call anyone for support. If you have had training, know the software and hardware, know the process and do your job, you should NOT need support. I can only assume when you call for support, you either have a bug in the software, a hardware issue or you don't know what you are doing. If it's the latter, leave it alone. If it's a software bug or hardware issue, I would take a hard look at the supplier and manufacturer.

My experience is a couple of years old.

I found that A-B, Siemens, and Modicon/Schneider factory support was not very good, and the support contracts competitively priced (or perhaps competitively over-priced..) I found that my best bet was local support from my distributor, and I happened to have great local support for all three brands.

I found the A-B documentation the easiest to use, Siemens the worst. I always had the impression that Siemens purposely structured things so that you would have them do the programming on a sub-contract basis. I used mostly ladder, and Siemens clearly considered ladder a necessary evil. On the other hand, A-B seemed to consider anything except ladder a necessary evil.

I cussed them all out on many occasions, with justification, but the market dictated we had to use them. I felt that at the factory level Modicon was improving, Siemens was getting worse, and A-B hanging at the same level.

And, just to stir the pot, I also used GE, AutomationDirect, and Horner. My guys had a few other brands in the mix. The one I cussed the least, quite frankly, was AutomationDirect. Prices were good for software and hardware, no support contracts, documentation easy to use, and factory support was top notch and responsive. On the downside there was no local support, but I didn't need it. There were some capabilities they didn't have, and they had a few quirks, but I always got the job done with them.

A lot of brand selection is dependent on personal preference, personal history, and local support. I cussed them all on occasion, but quite honestly I cussed hardest writing the checks for support agreements. I never felt like I got my money's worth from any of them. Once my company got to a certain point I just couldn't afford to take the chance and get caught without the contract.