Eaton ELC- Which Allen Bradley is most comparable?

zielker

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Jun 2015
Location
Seattle, WA
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Hello!

My name is Richard and I'm hoping to pick the brain-trust here about the Eaton ELC and which Allen Bradley PLC is most comparable. I'm a tooling designer and we use a lot of PLC's in our weld fixtures, assembly tools, and work holding tools. I'm new to electronics and PLC's and the company I work for just lost our most valuable PLC resource to a new job at another company. It looks like I'll be needing to get up to speed really quickly and I've been looking for training opportunities. I've only found one training source for the Eaton ELC, beyond Eaton's technical phone support, but I've found a lot of support for other PLC's such as Allen Bradley, namely Ron at PLC Bootcamp. If anyone knows of another resource for ELC training that'd be great, too.

After speaking to Ron, I really feel like his course would be the best to learn the troubleshooting skills that I'll be needing to diagnose issues on our existing tooling, but of course we don't use the same brand of PLC so there would be some differences. I was wondering if anyone has experience with the ELC modular series and perhaps the SLC-500 or the ControlLogix and maybe they could give me a rough comparison on which would be closest. The ELC models that we use are the ELC-PB14NNDR and the ELC-EX16NNDR expansion module. If I attend Ron's training I'd obviously have to select which series and it would be helpful to know if either of those two Allen Bradley lines are comparable in the least bit.

The ELC has been good for us because it's relatively cheap and the software is free, but it's tough to get support or training when we need it. That being said, at some point we are considering going away from the ELC and are considering the Allen Bradley. Our assembly lines currently operate on some form of Allen Bradley, but we outsource programming to an outside source, it'd be nice to bring that in-house. I understand that you have to pay for the software for Allen Bradley. Can anyone give me some cost estimates on what you all pay for the PLC controller and an expansion module from either the SLC-500 or ControlLogix line? The ELC PLC we use has 8 inputs and 6 outputs and we can add 8 outputs and 8 inputs per expansion module so we'd be looking for something comparable in I/O. Also, anyone have an estimate they can throw out for the programming software cost for either the SLC-500 or the ControlLogix?

Thanks a bunch for the help, looking forward to utilizing this forum a lot in the future!
 
Hi Richard
I would suggest that you look at the Do-More PLC from Automation Direct. It has free programming software complete with a simulator available for download. As far as training there are a series of training videos by Automation Direct on YouTube.
http://www.automationdirect.com/adc/Overview/Catalog/Programmable_Controllers/Do-more_Series_PLCs_(Micro_Modular_-a-_Stackable)
The entire Ethernet starter kit can be purchased for 589.00 USD.
http://www.automationdirect.com/adc/Shopping/Catalog/Programmable_Controllers/Do-more_Series_PLCs_(Micro_Modular_-a-_Stackable)/Do-more_H2_(Micro_Modular_PLC)/CPUs/H2-DM1E-START
In my opinion this is the best value for the money.

Regards,
Garry
http://www.accautomation.ca
 
Welcome to the Forum !

Where in the Seattle area are you ? I can introduce you to the appropriate automation specialists at North Coast Electric for your area.

I happen to build automated tooling and assembly machines here in Renton, and we use almost exclusively ControlLogix and CompactLogix.
 
The ELC is an extremely low cost, low end PLC, more of a "relay replacer" really. The equivalent Rockwell version would be the Micro800 series. Software for that is free as well, called Connected Components Workbench. Not as powerful as a Logic based PAC, but more in line with what you are used to using now.
 
Hello,

Sounds like your requirements for a controller are pretty minimal.
Allen Bradley also offers the Micrologix 1100 model.
It has Ethernet and Serial Comms, and expansion capability.
It works on the Same type of RSLogix500 Software as the SLC you mentioned earlier, and for this particular model of Micrologix you can download a FREE copy that will work for the 1100 and 1000 models. (Other micrologix controllers will require a paid version)

Here is a link so you can check out the Micrologix Controllers:

http://ab.rockwellautomation.com/programmable-controllers/micrologix-1100

Here is a link to the Free software download:

http://www.rockwellautomation.com/global/support/plc/micrologix.page

There is also an emulator that works with this software you can download for free so you can take it for a test drive without having a controller.

If you are thinking of going to Ron Beaufort's PLC BOOTCAMP, I can highly recommend that you do that.
I recently took his Controllogix course and it is well worth doing.
At the end of 5 days you will walk out very capable and very confident in your ability's.

Also if I were you I would take Ken up on his offer to introduce you to the NC Automation Specialist in Seattle so you will have expert contacts locally.

Best Regards,

BCS
 
Allen Bradley also offers the Micrologix 1100 model.
I second the AB MicroLogix 1100 for your purposes. It has plenty of I/O, more than your Eaton ELC, plus it has the communications capabilities also, and free software.

The problem with the Micro800 is that the Connected Components Workbench is a programming computer hog, tries to take over your computer for its own use, with unbelievable amounts of software just to program a tiny little PLC. After using CCW a couple of days, I gave up and deleted the whole ball of string.
 
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