micro plc

Have a question about the micro line of plc equipment.
we are not a machine builder or integrator, what we do is come up with a needed piece of equipment or needed modifications to equipment we have in our plants and have to do it as cheap as possible due to the necessary cost saving. Saying this, in the last 5 years i have built over 200 pieces of equipment in house and we used the Micrologix 1400 and Maples HMI units.
We now looking at building some other pieces of equipment that only has abouot 3 motors and maybe 10 inputs will be used and possibly about 7 outputs.
Is there any advantage to using the new Micro plc?

My 2 cents
I have not used the new Micro PLC and was looking to see if it had ethernet, not sure if what you are building is on a network or stand alone, but I use the 1400 a lot as a small PLC. You can get them cheap and use the ethernet to your screen. I use the Weinview version, It is a cheap screen (price wise)and uses the EB Pro soft ware (free) I know maple systems and Weintek were the same screens and software just packaged with their logo so you should be familiar with the programming. The 1400 makes it nice for data collection.
If your not really marketing just upgrading in house I would keep the same platform

irondesk40 said:

Is there any advantage to using the new Micro plc?

Click to expand...

You know its going to be around for awhile and thats a plus, the prices on the 820 are very good and have built in Ethernet, the 850 is expandable if you have a larger project

That said, I agree with roxusa and the 1400 will be around for a long time to come (I think) we just became a Weintek distributor and they have a great quality product for the best price I have seen

I have a 820 I can loan you if you want to give it a try for a couple weeks, send me a PM if interested

My 1.5 cents (deflation)

So far I'm a fan of weintek. The documentation is quite cryptic, but once you start learning it, you can get the hang of it. I've dealt some with the micro systems, and I'm not really a fan. They aren't bad, they just feel funky to me. You may want to check out automation direct. Honestly, their productivity series is the bee's knees. You can get a processor, power supply, 4 slot rack and they have a huge selection of IO cards. The main reason I've fallen in love with the productivity 2000 is the software.

If you are using AB drives though, the micro may be a better fit as you can use CCW to set everything up, and it makes integrating the drives and PLC pretty seamless. The micro series HMI's I have worked with are **** though.

If you can keep your inputs at 10 and under and your outputs at 6 and under you may want to use the MicroLogix 1100. Programs with the same software as the MicroLogix 1400 and the I/O count is the only difference. The Micro 800 is an option, but learning the CCW software has a learning curve compared to the RSLogix 500 you already understand and can support.

Since you have that many micrologix 1400 in stock, I would stick with it.
you already have the spares and know the programming language.

regards,
james

We have 100's of the Micro820, Micro830, Micro810 running various application and close to 50 micro820 in the oilfield(There is no harsher environment!!!) Some of these units are probably pushing 4 yrs old.

I can say they have served us very well! The price just keeps coming down. The 2080-LC20-20QWB is now just $185.00 .

damica1 said:

We have 100's of the Micro820, Micro830, Micro810 running various application and close to 50 micro820 in the oilfield(There is no harsher environment!!!) Some of these units are probably pushing 4 yrs old.

I can say they have served us very well! The price just keeps coming down. The 2080-LC20-20QWB is now just $185.00 .

Click to expand...

WOW! The last time I checked the price on one, a simple one was around 800 dollars, plus another 600 for the HMI. That is cheap enough to reconsider using them.

Yes, I just bought 3 Micro820(2080-LC20-20QWB) Tuesday for $185.00. But for the last year they have been $250.00. I also just bought 5 Maple System (HMI5043LB) paid $190.00 ea. but this was a sale price.

I cant touch the 185.00... I sell a lot of them but my price is 230.00, list price is around 260.00

I did not know many people used the 4 inch HMI... I should be able to save you some money on it if you are interested in mt8050ie

geniusintraining:

Thanks for the information.

I have had an outstanding relation with Maple Systems, their support has been 100% whenever I needed help.

At this time I can see no reason to change vendors for a few dollars savings.

But, once again thanks for letting me know.

damica1 said:

At this time I can see no reason to change vendors for a few dollars savings.

Click to expand...

You sir are the customers that I dream of

And I have also heard very good things about their support as well

thanks for replies. Just going to stay with the 1400. have a generic program that i created a few years ago that allows me to just rename some i/o and get done quickly. Usually have 1-3 motors on what we have been doing and some air cylinders and switches and i just control each motor with a analog output that i can scale in the plc and use a automationdirect encoder that i use to measure the master and then scale that to the other motors if needed.
Looked at the Micro software and it would take a little time to get familiar and just don't have the extra time.
as far as the maples, last count was that i have used 217 of the small 4 inch units and they work very well. Have been using them for about 5 years and never had one to fail. Tech support is great when i call.
Did 4 projects with the compact logix and really wanted to switch over to them but cost was just too much when you doing internal and trying to save the bottom line cost of what something sells for when it goes out the door.
Did the ethernet control of several motors with the compact line but first one we sent to honduras and they had a problem with something not working they had no idea how to connect or troubleshoot so converted it to a 1400 and now if there is a issue its easy to talk them through how to use a volt meter to measure a 0-10 volt signal and saves me from having to fly over which i really am tired of doing.