Rockwell Price Madness

JaxGTO said:

I hear a lot of good things about Ignition but I have never used or priced it. If I did that AB tattoo on my back side would burst in to flames.

Click to expand...

I absolutely love Ignition, but the cost is a bit rough when getting into it. I remember looking at setting up a server for home use (because I left the company that was using it) and I think it was around $10k for a license.

NOW, with that said, if you have a server set up on site. I'd never install another rockwell HMI of any kind again. I was actually actively setting up new systems all with Ignition. At the time it was JAVA based and that can be glitchy but I thought it was way way way better than any FactoryTalk nonsense I've dealt with over the years.

BUT, my current job has obsolete FT HMIs and Ignition is a pretty hard no. The location is better at least.

edit - I remember they were coming out with an EDGE solution but it was like 500 tags and I thought that was a laughably bad idea and couldn't be used for even the simplest of applications (personally). The server license can be restarted every 2 hours if you want to play with it.

Edge no longer has a tag limit.

If you're an (IA) integrator you get $60K worth of modules for playing about with at home/office, with no 2-hour time limit.

Back on topic, I installed AB CCW for the first time this week. You're right that it's quite like S5K, in one respect anyway, it takes ages to install and needs dependencies that don't come packaged. I would have used a CPX L16 for this project but one year ago I was quoted £300 and this year I was quoted £1200.

I'm having a serious look around in the next month or two at alternatives to AB. I bought a Groov Epic a month ago, software was installed in minutes (and free). But the price of hardware is prohibitive for small projects, even using the SnapPAC line.

Just had a rough morning with FT View ME so my thought is tinted still. I intent to rip out all PV+ eventually.

I do remember View SE seems ok compared to the other market leader like iFix and WW but I would go with Panelview 5k series or redlion for touchscreen interface and Ignition for PC based HMI.

the_msp said:

Back on topic, I installed AB CCW for the first time this week. You're right that it's quite like S5K, in one respect anyway, it takes ages to install and needs dependencies that don't come packaged. I would have used a CPX L16 for this project but one year ago I was quoted £300 and this year I was quoted £1200.

Click to expand...

So I'm not sure why you had the experience you did, I've installed CCW 12 on three different computers now and one of the other engineers here has installed it twice. Of those five times, they all went smooth and everything was installed that it needed to operate (I've not had to install anything additional since). As to the time to install, CCW is a very large software package but then again it is used to configure Micro 800 controllers, seven different series of drives, Safety relays, light curtains, motor controllers and two different series of PV's.
As to the cost of an L16, which version and was it the same for both quotes? First let me say that something doesn't add up. Is it possible you were being offered a significant discount for some reason on the first one? £300 is ridiculously cheap for any version of a CompactLogix. I'm also not buying a 400% increase (I'm not saying you are making it up but there must be a reason outside of the norm). There is something missing in all of that. Currently the L16 has a price range of $827 (USD) to $1660 (USD) depending on which version you get. Those are both list price so I can see $1300 (USD) which points to the first quote was special pricing. Either that or you have a distributor playing games with you.

Yes there are other products out there and most of them are less expensive than AB however how common is it to find a 35 year old low budget PLC still running like it was new? Having said that, let me reiterate something Ken said, Rockwell has not "lost their minds". There are reasons for price changes and like every other company on the planet they are in business to make money, plain and simple (that doesn't make them evil).

the_msp said:

I would have used a CPX L16 for this project but one year ago I was quoted £300 and this year I was quoted £1200.

.

Click to expand...

Really? Full list on Routeco is £941

1769-L16er-BB1B same for both quotes, and I wasn't buying from an RA distributor, so one part of the problem is "RA own the market and no one apart from our approved sales channel can get involved".

CCW was a bit of a MS issue, first tried it on my Hyper-V setup laptop, instant regret. Changed to VM Workstation Pro and less issues, but still, it's meant to be for entry level stuff.

Most installers come with the tick box exercise, or the master tick box installs everything. With CCW I had to get separate installers, unzip, run different installers. Compared to installing MySQL as an example, if it doesn't have it you just click 'execute' and it goes and gets it.

Do you think you will see a Micro850 (or similar) in 2055? I don't. There's other threads on this forum about their hardware locking up for no valid reason.

My local RA distributor don't stock much, they stated 5 days lead time. On a prior project (5069-CPX), they stated 10 days, it took 5 weeks. JIT manufacturing?

I didn't call them evil. Just stating I'm in the same boat of comparing alternatives.

Just noticed NI, thats a whole different ball game tbh

Another suggestion are the unitronics plc's and hmi's.
I used them a few years ago, i think it was the univision line.
Its not the most user friendly software, but you get a lot of hardware and software for a cheap price. And the panel was very responsive, a lot faster then Rockwell or Siemens panels.

I'll just sit in the corner as my company already decided on standardizing with Rockwell...

crying, obviously.

cardosocea said:

I'll just sit in the corner as my company already decided on standardizing with Rockwell...

crying, obviously.

Click to expand...

You'll be fine, I promise.

Firejo, I'm very familiar with the Logix theme that was added into CCW. It's a step in the right direction as far as making the development closer to a Studio 5000 application. Don't get me wrong, I'm not afraid to recommend the CCW platform, I think it's very capable as far as hardware goes for simple machine applications. If I'm working with a non-AB system builder, I've been pretty successful in getting them to use the CCW platform because they don't have the expectations of the workflow that a Studio 5000 user would. Because of the differences in the workflow, especially online edits, with CCW as compared to Logix 500/Studio 5000, I'm very hesitant to take them there.

The toolkit program (if that's what the original post of $5700 is talking about) has begun to migrate to Rockwell's software portal as well, which could also account for the pricing change. If you're not familiar with it, this is a subscription based ordering portal for Rockwell software products. If you're upset with Rockwell about the subscription, please don't. They are meeting expectations of end users as compared to how they manage software licensing with other vendors like Microsoft and AutoCAD. As of right now, the traditional perpetual licensing is still available through your distributor if you still want to go that way.

A little late to the discussion.

I have been experiencing some price bumps with RA also. BUT a couple of years ago the OEM part of the operations went to Red Lion displays. This lets the customers decide which PLC system they want without the needed quote for another HMI builder. (The built-in Ignition license saves us $400, and well as native drivers for most controllers)
We've done a lot of the CCW, CLX, Siemens using the Red Lion with good success.
As MSP noted the Groov Spark is very intriguing.

Also may note here that Automation Direct has a Arduino-compatible system available.

Dare we talk about the Emerson products and the price of a 475, or the new Trex?

We use CCW touchscreens l16, l23 etc l36 with safety cost is lower and why would you change to the devil you dont know.

the_msp said:

would have used a CPX L16 for this project but one year ago I was quoted £300 and this year I was quoted £1200.

Click to expand...

You must be mis-remembering that. That price is near the Micro8xx price range, the CPX L16 has never been anywhere near 300 euro.

I remember I used a PIC16F684 chip in my GCSE technology project. That was more than half my lifetime ago.

I pulled up the quote less than a month ago to compare it to the higher-priced one.

Read my comment about not using the official RA distributor chain.