Need to pull a program from a Siemens S7 PLC

I am used to working with Allen Bradley PLC's and their Rockwell RsLogix programming software.

I have a product I'm reverse engineering that has a Siemen's Simatic S7 PLC in the control panel. I have physical access to the control panel, but I don't have any of the Siemen's PLC software. I don't need to make any changes to the program at all, I just need to be able to download the existing program from this PLC and save a copy so I can load it onto PLC's in future builds.

I would imagine this is a fairly simple task once the software is set up, and has probably been covered before. Is there a free or cheap version of software for Siemens PLC's for these basic tasks? Any guide or literature for the basics of connecting would also be appreciated. If this has been covered before, pointing me in the right direction would be great.

Do you know what Model of Siemens S7 PLC you are working with?

Bullzi said:

Do you know what Model of Siemens S7 PLC you are working with?

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S7-1200 i believe

Any idea of what version it was wrote in ? the software is going to be TIA Portal

After answering Genius's question.............Although not required, is there a memory card in it?
If so- you might be able to copy the program from it and paste to another

geniusintraining said:

Any idea of what version it was wrote in ? the software is going to be TIA Portal

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I honestly have no idea. I'm not very familiar with Siemens PLC's.

Well since you know AB, its like RSLogix 5000 (Studio) from all that I have seen you need the version is was wrote on so with AB if it was wrote on 15 and you have 14 your in trouble... kind of, you would just need to upgrade your software

Is this in your plant or are you doing this for another customer?

geniusintraining said:

Well since you know AB, its like RSLogix 5000 (Studio) from all that I have seen you need the version is was wrote on so with AB if it was wrote on 15 and you have 14 your in trouble... kind of, you would just need to upgrade your software

Is this in your plant or are you doing this for another customer?

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We don't do a whole lot of PLC work, and when we do we use RSLogix Micro Lite (free version). We're a small business and don't have the need/resources for expensive software we don't use all the time.

Similar setup on the Siemen's PLC. We're reverse engineering a product we used to oursource. The PLC program has already been written and functions, so I don't need to do anything to it, other than install it on PLC's that we build in the future. It looks like there is a STEP 7 Lite that might be what I'm looking for. I'm trying to figure out where the download link is, lol.

Fleabay has sellers with TIA portal for $200 +/- $100 or so, then download the software after purchase, install it, and finally jump through some minor hoops to generate the license. It's important to get a version of TIA Portal that can handle the firmware version in the PLC; I needed V14 to talk to my v4.2 S7-1214C. Knowing what I know now it would take maybe half a day from scratch (purchase, download, install, license, connect, save program), but for a first timer I would allow quite a bit more. Considering the time involved and your billing rate, getting a used laptop fro $500-$1200 with TIA Portal installed may be more cost-efficient. The seller I did it with seemed competent and the process was not too painful. Getting TIA Portal to communicate with my S7-1200 was more involved, but it worked in the end. At it's core it's a similar process to RSLogix, just three times more complex; there are plenty of Youtube videos out there to walk you through it.

Start with TIA Portal V15.1:

https://support.industry.siemens.co...-and-wincc-v15-trial-download-?dti=0&lc=en-WW

Scroll down to "TRIAL Download STEP 7 Basic/Professional and WinCC Basic/Comfort/Advanced" to find your download.

When you're able to connect to your S7-1200, you can see online what version your program was downloaded with.

Be aware that the program in the PLC could be password protected, and some blocks could be protected.

If this is a machine your company made and wants to make more then there should be no problem, BUT if this is a competitors machine your company is trying to copy there probably will be problems, especially if there is a password or someone needs to call their technical support to resolve an issue on a clone.

Aabeck said:

Be aware that the program in the PLC could be password protected, and some blocks could be protected.

If this is a machine your company made and wants to make more then there should be no problem, BUT if this is a competitors machine your company is trying to copy there probably will be problems, especially if there is a password or someone needs to call their technical support to resolve an issue on a clone.

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It's an outsourced product, and we have the support from the company that was producing them. I believe they sub-contracted the PLC program, so communication gets messy and it's just easier if we can pull the program ourselves.

I was able to download the STEP 7 trial software, and I'm installing now. Thanks for the help and input everyone. I'll update when I'm successful, tomorrow hopefully!

1) If there's a memory card, you can just copy the files to other memory cards.


2)There's a tool called the Simatic Automation Tool, which allows for backing up PLCs and restoring those backups to other PLCs, and other maintenance type/non-programming tasks.



3) You buy Step 7 Basic, which covers only the 1200's. It's much cheaper than Step 7 Professional (for all PLCs). It's only slightly more expensive than the Automation Tool. V16 is the current version. The V16 license will activate all prior versions of Step 7 Basic. As far as I know, you can only upload in the same version that did the download. Not sure if you can do backup/restore from a newer Portal version or not.

He didn’t bother to answer that in post 5

opmal7 said:

I am used to working with Allen Bradley PLC's and their Rockwell RsLogix programming software.

I have a product I'm reverse engineering that has a Siemen's Simatic S7 PLC in the control panel. I have physical access to the control panel, but I don't have any of the Siemen's PLC software. I don't need to make any changes to the program at all, I just need to be able to download the existing program from this PLC and save a copy so I can load it onto PLC's in future builds.

I would imagine this is a fairly simple task once the software is set up, and has probably been covered before. Is there a free or cheap version of software for Siemens PLC's for these basic tasks? Any guide or literature for the basics of connecting would also be appreciated. If this has been covered before, pointing me in the right direction would be great.

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Don't do it. Don't download anything.