poll: what is your favorite plc to program

ganutenator

Lifetime Supporting Member
Join Date
May 2002
Location
kansas
Posts
1,440
don't need to get to elaborate in your reason. Just curious what people like.

My favorite ladder logic plc was the slc 5/04 in the late stages.
My favorite now. Mostly because i use it every day and the software isn't buggy, is the M340.

biggest complaint on the M340 is price and lack of cards and slow input cards compared to the competitors. and the sfc in codesys is much better. and no line numbers until you print the structured text routine.
 
== which ever you are most familiar with.

In the old days, it was the Rosemount R3 DCS. Today, it's the Contrologix PLC.
 
I've switched companies in the last 2 years, and my new employer uses predominately Siemens (S7-300/S7-1500) and the more I use it, the more I like it.

I still get to play with the occasional Compact/Control Logix though.
 
I've switched companies in the last 2 years, and my new employer uses predominately Siemens (S7-300/S7-1500) and the more I use it, the more I like it.

I still get to play with the occasional Compact/Control Logix though.

I heard siemens is like the AB over seas. also heard it it's own animal. how steep was the learning curve?
 
I don't like programming any PLCs. All the IDEs are lacking compared to Visual Studio.
If I had to chose one I would pick AB because of RS5000 but I don't like RS5000 instruction set as much as the PLC Open one.

I would prefer to program in ST that generates good code. Siemens has SCL which is almost ST but from my experience with S7-300s the generate code is awful.
 
The one I use the most and most familiar with is the Control logix platform.

I have done a dozen or so smaller projects the last couple of years with the Automation Direct Productivity series and have no issues working with it.

Others have been Mitsubishi, Beckhoff, Siemens. I don't have enough experience with any of those to say one way or the other.
 
I don't like programming any PLCs. All the IDEs are lacking compared to Visual Studio.
If I had to chose one I would pick AB because of RS5000 but I don't like RS5000 instruction set as much as the PLC Open one.

I would prefer to program in ST that generates good code. Siemens has SCL which is almost ST but from my experience with S7-300s the generate code is awful.

been programming in structured text since 2006. basically because the audience changed. now it an oem product where no one gets to see the code.

I find myself going back to ladder some times for a lot of boolean logic, as it seems easier than a lot of parens.
 
Definitely Omron - but not the new PLC - will not use it - European style rubbish! CX-Programmer is the best Windoze based ladder editor I have used - and tags just copy and paste in and out of Excel - no import/export - copy and paste. Easy. Also straight I/O numbers - no % this and % that - really speedy. Channel 100 bit 10 just type in 10010 - no need to even type in the dot between the channel and bit numbers.
 
Definitely Omron - but not the new PLC - will not use it - European style rubbish! CX-Programmer is the best Windoze based ladder editor I have used - and tags just copy and paste in and out of Excel - no import/export - copy and paste. Easy. Also straight I/O numbers - no % this and % that - really speedy. Channel 100 bit 10 just type in 10010 - no need to even type in the dot between the channel and bit numbers.

not going to call you a salesman for omron, just my nose is tingling is all.
 
not going to call you a salesman for omron, just my nose is tingling is all.
I have been on this forum a long time. BobB has also been around a long time. He has ALWAYS been an Omron fan. I can see why. Omron is cheaper than Rockwell and the programming is decent for a PLC.

BTW, this current version of the forum has been around since about 2002 but there were other versions from about 1999.

As time goes on the topic have changed from programming basic ladder to all the other things that make up a PLC system.
 
Siemens.

The flexibility, range of products from them and other manufacturers that you can use is unrivalled. Also, being able to download a block at a time instead of "online" changes is beautiful.
 
== which ever you are most familiar with.

This.

I'm most familiar with current generation Wago PLC's, programmed in Codesys, so that is what I like working with. I have no problem with others preferring something else.

From a hardware point of view I like the modular design with a wide range of input and output modules, as well as controllers that have plenty of memory and processing power, onboard ethernet, serial connection, SD card slot, RTC. The runtime software comes with web visualisation (HMI in just about any browser), additional services like NTP for time synchronisation, OpenVPN. I can open a Linux command prompt on the controller for troubleshooting.

I like the availability in codesys of all IEC61131 languages, at no additional cost. I use mostly ladder and ST. Ladder is easy to understand for troubleshooting by colleagues in the field who are mostly electrically trained. ST for things like elaborate state machines. It is more powerful/flexible than SFC, also good for parsing text, for example in raw serial and ethernet communication.
 
This.

I'm most familiar with current generation Wago PLC's, programmed in Codesys, so that is what I like working with. I have no problem with others preferring something else.

From a hardware point of view I like the modular design with a wide range of input and output modules, as well as controllers that have plenty of memory and processing power, onboard ethernet, serial connection, SD card slot, RTC. The runtime software comes with web visualisation (HMI in just about any browser), additional services like NTP for time synchronisation, OpenVPN. I can open a Linux command prompt on the controller for troubleshooting.

I like the availability in codesys of all IEC61131 languages, at no additional cost. I use mostly ladder and ST. Ladder is easy to understand for troubleshooting by colleagues in the field who are mostly electrically trained. ST for things like elaborate state machines. It is more powerful/flexible than SFC, also good for parsing text, for example in raw serial and ethernet communication.

I love my unity and m340, but the the cost and cards available for the wago sparks my interest.

I used codesys in an lmc motion controller from schneider. The codesys sfc semed much more straight forward. the untiy to codesys in structured texted nearly translated verbatum, sans & and type casting et al.

I like the codesys as it is used widely and you aint locked down to one vendor.

big plus about unity and the m340 is online changes, easy tag renaming, bug free like software. downsides: cost, slow input cards, lack of cards, must buy proprietor sd card. dhcp sucks, and a some other minor things.

loved phoenix. I call it codesissy. loved it. but try and rename a tag or do modbus, and ug. raw ethernet socket stuff, awesome.

rs logix by far the best ladder. not at first.
 
I have been programming Siemens for a while now, started of with Simatic Manager, TIA came along and I hated it, when V13 came out, we took the leap and are using 1200 and 1500 mainly now.

I like it. I like the fact that the 1200 is quite capable and very affordable, there where we have more complex systems, we use the 1500. We run the same (or very similar code) on the 1200 and 1500. Siemens support is okay, the forums are great (including this one).

I also like the fact that programming the HMI and PLC in the same environment makes it easy to add/change tags.

I attended an RS Logix 5000 course the past months, it seems quite capable but I have to say it is very cumbersome to work with.

In the past I have worked with Mitsubishi, Unitronics and Omron. Not a big fan. All have some very nice capabilities, but overall it was a b to work with.
I also did the developer certification for Labview. Again massively impressive capabilities, especially for logging high volumes of data at high speeds. But for my use, not really it.

All in all, I agree that one will likely prefer the environment they work in the most.
 

Similar Topics

Hi, Do you have any trick to make a software working when the 30 days demo version is expired? I've tried to uninstall/clean the registers etc...
Replies
6
Views
242
I'm trying to use DTM browser to make make modbus poll from RTAC. I'm able to get the points in first poll object. But not able to get anything in...
Replies
1
Views
98
Hello Guys, I have a Omron 3G3MX2 drive and I want to learn how its Modbus registers work by connecting to pc via Modbus poll software. does...
Replies
1
Views
678
Just curious what the 'standard' is where you are. I assume 11 x 17 (or A3 for ISO people) is standard, but I could be wrong. My shop was using...
Replies
31
Views
13,804
i am using modbus pol to trouble shoot a modbus comms issue. I have device communicating modbus over rs485 going through a lantronix express DR...
Replies
7
Views
2,926
Back
Top Bottom