allen bradley slc 5/03

I have done programming in the Schneider world but I am not very familiar with all of Allen Bradley's plcs and softwares.

My customer has a SLC 5/03 plc. From my research, it looks like RSLogic would be the correct software to use? But I wasn't sure and neither was I sure which version of RSLogic.

Can you advise on the correct software and info the SLC 5/03 would be nice as well. Is it a current plc model?

You need logix500.
AB has a great weeksite with lots of literature to help you.

Gareth

The SLC-5/03 is a "mature" but not obsolete model. It was very popular in the 1990's. If you threw three rocks into a crowd of industrial electricians in the US, one of them would hit an SLC-500 user.

The software to program it is called "RSLogix 500". Not "5" or "5000"; those are for different families of controllers.

You need at least the "standard" version of RSLogix 500. There's a free version that does not support the SLC-500, just a couple of the smaller MicroLogix controllers. Don't try that.

One of the most important things to know about the SLC-5/03 is that the RJ45 network jack is NOT AN ETHERNET PORT. It runs a serial network called "Data Highway 485", which is proprietary to Allen-Bradley controllers. The port has a +24V pin, so if you plug it into an Ethernet switch, both the controller (probably) and the switch (definitely) will be damaged.

The RS-232 serial port is usually set up for "DF1 Full Duplex" protocol, which is easy to connect with an ordinary serial port. The DH485 network port needs a purpose-built network converter, the modern version of which is called a 1747-UIC (USB to DH485).

Thanks ken for the very helpful information.

If I would purchase RSLogix 500, would I be basically limited to the SLC-500 series or how many series of AB controllers could I program?

Great and full answer.
I had an engineer plug an ethernet cable into the port on the front of a 503. The cpu went into fault.

Gareth

lesmar96 said:

Thanks ken for the very helpful information.

If I would purchase RSLogix 500, would I be basically limited to the SLC-500 series or how many series of AB controllers could I program?

Click to expand...

You could program SLC-500 series (mature) and the MicroLogix series (Current). The Micrologix series uses the same basic instruction set, it is a smaller footprint, and much less total IO than the SLC.

RSLogix 500 supports the SLC-500 range of controllers and the MicroLogix controllers.

The SLC-5/0x are still popular and parts will be manufactured for the foreseeable future for CPUs and most modules. I'm doing a modification (not a conversion or upgrade) on a large SLC-5/05 based system we built 12 years ago that is still going strong.

The MicroLogix 1100 and 1400 are both still very popular controllers.


RSLogix 500 does not support any of the modern ControlLogix or CompactLogix controllers; those use "RSLogix 5000", now named "Studio 5000 Logix Designer".

Ken Moore said:

You could program SLC-500 series (mature) and the MicroLogix series (Current). The Micrologix series uses the same basic instruction set, it is a smaller footprint, and much less total IO than the SLC.

Click to expand...

Thanks. That is what I was finding in my research.

So as I gather, this software would be to program Allen Bradley's low end plc series?

I see they offer the Professional, Standard, and Starter. Which would you recommend?

Standard if you need to do any online editing. Starter doesn't allow online editing or have cross reference. Pro has a few bells and whistles like custom graphic monitors that are hard to ju$tify in most cases.

Is it complicated to upgrade to a higher version at any point, other than paying the cost?

All the features are installed, they just switch on based on which Activation code you have. So it's easy to upgrade.

I've seen the "Professional" features used only once, and I'm a pretty sophisticated programmer. Get the Standard edition.

my 2 cents

RsLogix in its mature stages was the absolute best ladder logic editor by far in all my 20+ years of programming.

2) glad to see they are still making and supporting it.

3) Ken Roach is the AB guru!