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Lifetime Supporting Member
Thanks Archie. Great post.
I've been an A-B guy from way back and a CodeSys (less Beckhoff, more others) over the past 3 years.
RSLogix is a friendlier environment than either CodeSys 2 or 3 BUT when it comes to ease of interface, as a trained programmer, CodeSys stole my heart. The ability to write protocols over RS-485 or Ethernet, having a PLC that can "talk" to MS-SQL and is an FTP server, the ability to send secure emails, the built in web-server capabilities, external and open libraries such as OSCAT, etc, etc, convinced me that, while RSLogix is great for most common tasks, when you need that extra something, CodeSys provides it (generally) and provides it at no cost (generally.)
I almost forgot that CodeSys works on multiple platforms by multiple manufacturers.
CodeSys controllers tend to be more apt to stopping the controller than A-B, Siemens, or the others, which basically means that they fit a discrete manufacturing better than a process control.
I don't agree entirely with the learning curve being steep even though there will still be a learning curve. There are some definite benefits to CodeSys ladder such as the ease of integration of fb into Ladder that shouldn't be overlooked. And Archie is spot on regarding the other languages. It seems to me that CodeSys was designed with ST as it's primary programming language.
Good luck,
Yosi
I've been an A-B guy from way back and a CodeSys (less Beckhoff, more others) over the past 3 years.
RSLogix is a friendlier environment than either CodeSys 2 or 3 BUT when it comes to ease of interface, as a trained programmer, CodeSys stole my heart. The ability to write protocols over RS-485 or Ethernet, having a PLC that can "talk" to MS-SQL and is an FTP server, the ability to send secure emails, the built in web-server capabilities, external and open libraries such as OSCAT, etc, etc, convinced me that, while RSLogix is great for most common tasks, when you need that extra something, CodeSys provides it (generally) and provides it at no cost (generally.)
I almost forgot that CodeSys works on multiple platforms by multiple manufacturers.
CodeSys controllers tend to be more apt to stopping the controller than A-B, Siemens, or the others, which basically means that they fit a discrete manufacturing better than a process control.
I don't agree entirely with the learning curve being steep even though there will still be a learning curve. There are some definite benefits to CodeSys ladder such as the ease of integration of fb into Ladder that shouldn't be overlooked. And Archie is spot on regarding the other languages. It seems to me that CodeSys was designed with ST as it's primary programming language.
Good luck,
Yosi