difference between allen bradlly and seimense PLCs

Both manufacturers offer a broad range of products for automation projects of all sizes. Both offer products that do what they are designed to do. Allen Bradley is based in the United States. Siemens is German. Both have worldwide presence.
 
One is made of parts manufactured in Asia for an American company. The other is made of parts manufactured in Asia for a German company.

Both are excellent machines.

If you are looking for help choosing one of the other, I suggest you focus on which one has the best local support for where you are.
 
One is made of parts manufactured in Asia for an American company. The other is made of parts manufactured in Asia for a German company..

Maybe they are the same... just a conspiracy to make us think that they are different :)
 
Nooooo the HARDWARE is similar.....but we dont program with hardware anymore, do we?

OK I'll tell you some details that I have discovered recently.

If you want to receive the hardware and software and write some simple code that works in a week or less...............go with AB.

And by this I mean you and the hardware with software installed and the one book of instructions in front of you and you have a simple discete circuit running in the first day maybe even in an hour or less. And then by the end of the week you should be able to program most simple functions as timers counters and even analog and math functions.

Tackle the PID your second week. This assumes you understand machine functions, math, basic electricity and PC use and can think logicaly and read and understand simple technical English.

And if you can't do those things.............niether will be easy nor any other format.

If you want to learn allot of spiffy programing tricks and enjoy mountains of documentation that say very little and you really love asking questions here and searching the forum and the net for answers............go with Siemens.

Note that you will HAVE to learn the tricks to get any satisfaction out of Siemens.

I can think of a handfull of "tricky bits" with AB and I could explain them in a short time.

I have been using Siemens Step7 for what seems like a year but it is only 3 months and I have a huge on going list of issues that I could never explain to anyone.

Maybe after I am done and get this behind me I will write a book about the torture and rapture of decending into the darkest pit of the abyss and returning to tell the tale. I feel like one of those characters in a fantasy novel without the "old guy" who teaches all the neat stuff.
 
The American way is the right/only way versus the German way is the right/only way. Additionally, both forget the rules and implement their own versions of protocols. I refer to Device Net, Ethernet I/P and Profibus of course.

Bit tongue in cheek?
 
The American way is the right/only way versus the German way is the right/only way. Additionally, both forget the rules and implement their own versions of protocols. I refer to Device Net, Ethernet I/P and Profibus of course.

Bit tongue in cheek?
The only right way is the way I'm best used to. And that goes for everyone, I believe :ROFLMAO:.

Blaming either one of these manufacturers (as dahnuguy does) is simply complaining they didn't ask the individual end-user what he/she wants. I believe that if you only have a handful of users, you can consult them. But if you have hundreds of thousands of users worldwide, you're bound to find a lot of them complaining. It's very hard to please everybody, you know.

I do use both Siemens (S5, S7-200 and S7-300) and Allen-Bradley (CompactLogix and SLC 5/03) PLCs. Both have their strengths and their weaknesses, but neither is worse than the other.

Happy holidays,
 
Getting started with AB is easier than getting started with Siemens, but once you are up and running both manufacturers offer a complete range of systems from the basic shoebox PLC up to complete plant wide solutions.

So all other things being equal, I would choose AB over Siemens, but life is usually not that simple, and there will be other factors that will affect the decision, e.g. existing equipment, local support, cost etc.
 
The powers to be at our manufacturing facility want our (to
put it nicely) "Controls' challenged" electrical people to
learn more of the PLCs', Ac/Dc drives, HMI , motion controls , etc to give me a break.
Due to a worldwide customer base we have and used a variety of brands including Allen Bradley and Siemens.
Both are good however I shutter to think when the next Siemens project rolls around and these newbies get thrown into the shark invested Siemens waters. They are having trouble with the AB Slc-500s. I guess I will have to have a bottle or two of extra aspirin laying around.... :unsure: :mad: :mad: :sick:
 

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