ABB AC500 HA PLC seems very cheap

I'm one to grab hold of a gift horse's mouth, shine a torch down it's throat and have a bloody good look... I've only really used A-B Compact/Control Logix, Siemens S7 and Mitusbishi Q so when a new customer demanded ABB, Schneider or GE Fanuc for their redundant (CPU only, non-safety) PLC system it was a shot in the dark. Schneider and GE came back with realistic prices (better than both A-B and Siemens) but ABB was a quarter of their price...!

Anyone had experience of ABB AC500 HA with CP600 HMI? I will of course follow up the quotes but that means battling with a salesman which at my ripe old age I'm starting to tire of - I'd prefer to hear from actual users.

Thanks in advance.

Haven't used the HA, but the AC500 is just another Codesys PLC.
HA probably uses Codesys redundancy.

https://www.codesys.com/products/codesys-runtime/redundancy-toolkit.html

AustralIan said:

Haven't used the HA, but the AC500 is just another Codesys PLC.
HA probably uses Codesys redundancy.

https://www.codesys.com/products/codesys-runtime/redundancy-toolkit.html

Click to expand...

Never used Codesys PLCs. Any reason it's so cheap? Why would I pay 4 times more for GE or Schneider in other words?!

Do they all have MTBFd data?
I think Codesys PLCs are from manufacturers who developed half a system. They develop the hardware and then pay for Codesys licences rather than building software for their hardware. Similar to with systems integration, you don't want a Siemens running the front half of a machine and a Rockwell running the back half. Anything goes wrong in the middleish and they all point the finger at each other before any troubleshooting takes place.

It is a bit abstract though. They will all get you the job done. Just check the specs and make sure you're not missing something like MTBFd.

Availability of spares may or may not be a concern.

Thanks. Slightly easier for us because we initially proposed A-B or Siemens, it's the customer who is pushing ABB (and GE, Schneider), so they should be aware of support, reliability, spares issues etc.

amberman said:

Thanks. Slightly easier for us because we initially proposed A-B or Siemens, it's the customer who is pushing ABB (and GE, Schneider), so they should be aware of support, reliability, spares issues etc.

Click to expand...

I wouldn't bet your house on that, we get some odd requests for some bizarre hardware, some of the time it's to fit in with plant policy (which is fair enough), mostly it's because some arse in a meeting once heard someone in the queue at Greggs banging on about Kinco or whatever.

I have used AC500 for a couple of projects now, and it has worked fine.
Not to much to complain about, it does it's job and Codesys is straight forward.
As for spare parts ABB are really good, which is why i prefer them. If I remember correctly they guarantee spare parts for 5 years after they have stopped production (and longer if they still have stock).
The AC500 is a "machine PLC". It does not support hot-swap of interfaces and such. But if you don't need it then it's no problem.
It's a good bang for your buck if you ask me.
Oh, and I really like the continuis function chart in Codesys. It's really neat if you like to make and use your own function blocks. Just put your function block in a CFC-program and configure your inputs and outputs.

Hope this helps!

Thanks Friedrich. They are only after hot swappable CPU which is supposedly supported so it looks like a goer...

I have used the AC500 line for many projects, from simple to coordinated motion. It is a good value for the lower end of the line. I will probably never use it for motion again. The CP600 series is pretty solid. Made by Exor. Have never used the HA version.

CoDeSys is kind of generic, and each manufacturer then decides on what they put into it. In other words CoDeSys from one supplier doesn't have to be the same as from another supplier. Programming environment is the same, but functions and features will be different.