Supply Chain issues with Drives , PLC Components , Motors , etc.

Cydog said:

Many years ago I used Benshaw soft starts and drives. Have many of you used Benshaw lately ? Where are they actually built now ? I see they have a location in Pittsburgh and Canada . For the sake of our customers , I’m looking for options in case this supply chain issues get worse .

Thanks for all your responses and experiences . Have a great weekend .

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Yes, I’ve used quite a few Benshaw soft starts.

They do still have some of the PA built soft starts in their line up, but they are being phased out since they purchased Aucomm. Their new soft starts are the Aucomms.

Their drives are just rebadged LS Electric (South Korea). I’ve heard rumors that the Aucomm soft starts are also OEM’d by LS.

LS is solid stuff, sometimes a little dated as far as technology, but I wouldn’t be afraid of Benshaw products.

We are still providing two week deliveries FOR NOW. It look grim. Our purchasing agent needs to pay scalper prices for some chips, resistors or capacitors. She is doing a great job but we see no end in sight.

I heard this week that the Omron NS screens are no more as well, just like that.

Siemens S7-1200 PLCs and Expansion blocks are from two to five months. Some RedLion HMIs ordered last November are now expected in June. The company where I buy Sierra modems will now only sell to 'partners'. For some reason B rated MCBs are suddenly like hens teeth. DC distribution devices are tough to get. All this really screws up any cash flow plans. Watch out for company failures.

This isn't the first Supply Chain problems I have experienced. Last time marginal chips that should have been destroyed made their way back in to the supply chain. Electronic components produced on the cheap and in a hurry made it worse. Things worked for a while but then there was a large increase in 'in service' failures.

There are a few issues here all working together. Some will fix themselves quite quickly, but it is very expensive and takes a couple of years to increase chip capacity. So don't expect this to end any time soon. This is the voice of doom coming to you from the UK

BryanG , do you think this is what happened to a large lot of PowerFlex 40
drives that failed prematurely in 2004 or so ?

I don't know, I haven't ever used Powerflex drives. If you get a lot of premature failures it is usually down to bad design, bad choice of components, bad soldering on circuit boards, or faulty components. Take your pick.

Way back, I suddenly started having the nuts in one size of contactor mains terminal break as I was tightening them. I hadn't suddenly got stronger and I wasn't using any new screwdrivers with larger handles. A bad batch of steel was most likely, though of course the company denied there was any issue. This was before any internet and so there was no way to see if others were having the same problem. Surprisingly I stopped using that make of contactor

lostcontrol - not quite that bad - still getting them in Oz - just have to be patient.


I ordered 2 Red Lion screens last June - they were due in December - did not turn up - latest delivery expectation is end March.


Even circuit breakers and RCDs are becoming impossible to buy.

Chip shortage till 2024

Just to cheer up your day

Here is the view of Intel's CEO:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/tech...-chip-shortage-will-last-into-2024/ar-AAWQtuY

@Cydog, In2003/2004 we had a system delivered & commissioned in 2003 from a US company (We had many systems from the US), the powerflex drives & HMI's frequently failed, the HMI's failed due to frequent power downs, for some reason in the US it appears to be common that on an emergency stop to remove the power to the PLC & HMI (no idea why), I modified the system to keep these on & just removing the power from the PLC outputs (this was already in place) just moved the supply to PLC & HMI onto a new supply breaker before the safety relay, this cured the problems with the HMI failing frequently, however, we did seem to have more HMI failures than on other equipment with the older PV's, The powerflex drives were failing at least one per week, I replaced them with Mitsubishi (we always carried these in stock) no more problems, so yes I believe there were problems with those drives, the Mitsubishi ones never failed when this system was in service until 2018.

BryanG said:

Just to cheer up your day

Here is the view of Intel's CEO:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/tech...-chip-shortage-will-last-into-2024/ar-AAWQtuY

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From the article 'It takes chips to make chips'.
Well there's finally a bit of common sense.
Isn't it that way in our sector as well? It takes PLCs, HMIs, VFDs, etc to make consumer goods. It'd be great if some politician would comprehend that and then seek to prioritize chips to the industrial market. But that's probably only wishful thinking. Everyone is more concerned with having that brand new smartphone in the pocket.

It seems the industrial electronics supply issue is still deepening, but hopefully this turns around soon.

parky said:

for some reason in the US it appears to be common that on an emergency stop to remove the power to the PLC & HMI (no idea why)

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Oh God )) Back in those days it was a very popular misreading of the NFPA safety standards treating any non-mechanical or electronic device as inherently unsafe so lots of companies were doing this. I remember how much I had to fight at my workplace to stop that practice.

LadderLogic said:

Oh God )) Back in those days it was a very popular misreading of the NFPA safety standards treating any non-mechanical or electronic device as inherently unsafe so lots of companies were doing this. I remember how much I had to fight at my workplace to stop that practice.

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I still fight to stop this general practice. We have a habit of copying machines we did 20+ years ago - and management doesn't want to give us the hours to correct things that were wrong; they want exact copies.

Rson said:

I know others have said they had problems with Rockwell - but most of their components have been fine on my end - apart from HMIs (which are overpriced anyway) and powerflex drives.

Siemens is nearly impossible to get across the board. I have 52 week lead times on some components.

Automation Direct is hit or miss on some stuff (but it has always been that way - it's just worse now).

Analog I/O cards seem to be incredibly hard to find. We've bought several for both Allen Bradley and Siemens from not-so-reputable sources online. So far it has worked out, but . . . .

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This hurts so much, i just received a 2080-TC2 card ordered in november, and 2 weeks ago i received a s7-300 8xAI HART card oredered in august!!!!!!

We are actually offering our clients standaole rugged network I/O, as this only have a "6" (yeah right) week lead time, instead of the usual modular remote I/O offerings we supply with our projects.

This article yesterday does not bode well for Rockwell, but i am sure other are in the same boat.
https://www.marke****ch.com/story/r...-supply-chain-inflation-pressures-11651602679


Doesn't like something in the link, just Google "rockwell rok stock"
Or the headline "
Rockwell Automation stock suffers biggest selloff in more than 2 years as strong demand loses to supply chain, inflation pressures"

Our business is doing well because of our short lead times relative to our competitors. Where we are starting to get hurt is when the whole project is delayed due to lack of components like valves, cylinders, pumps, accumulators, PLCs, HMIs, even wiring connectors. Our controllers are only a small part of a whole system.


So you can see where a shortage of just one component can delay everything and demand for the rest of the components.
Not good.