which PLC have free software?

how

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Join Date
May 2018
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Dear All,

I am very beginner on plc. My first move is selecting PLC with free software and cheap (Chinese brand may be...). Or is there any hard way to write plc code without their very expensive software?
 
With Allen Bradley there are two free possibilities

- CCW (Connected Components Workbench), a software to program the Micro800 PLC familiy
- RSLogix Micro Starter Lite software to program MicroLogix 1000 and 1100 PLCs

On Ebay you can probably get an used Micro 800 or MicroLogix 1000/1100 for about $200 or less. I recommend you to get a model with ethernet port, so you will not have to buy a additional programming cable

Another possibility is to use a Raspberry PI board as a PLC, with some additional I/O board, the software to use is Codesys, an all free and very powerful software, it's full IEC 61131 compliant. On the Raspberry with the free version the PLC stops every two hours, to it to work continuously you have to buy a license of €50

Welcome to this forum !!!
 
Last edited:
Unitronics has free software and some models are incredibly cheap. Pretty reliable once set up correctly.

Automation Direct's "Click" series is probably the cheapest that I know of and also has free software. I have no experience with them, however.
 
All of the newer lines from Automation Direct have free software. The Click software is decent, and Productivity Suite is pretty good too. The DoMore software gets a lot of praise, but I have not used it yet with real hardware (it includes an emulator)
 
Agree with Okie PC. Have used all 3 with hardware. Click is fine, and probably the easiest for beginners. Cheapest PLC too. It doesn't do very well handling ASCII text.
Productivity is great.
Just started using DoMore. Software has some similarities to DirectSOFT used on the DL205 line.
Now using it and the BRX PLC line as my first choice. BRX is made in USA.
 
Wow what a wonderful forum I never see such a fast response in any forum, fast and useful response. I love this site. Thank you all guys!
 
Beckhoff TwinCAT is a good option. The software is free and included in it is a 30 day trial of a run time that will essentially turn your laptop into a PLC. Then when you are ready to scale to a real hardware based PLC you can get something like a CX8090 that will run the same programs you written and tested on your PC based run time.

The other advantage is that the software is CodeSys based, so once you learn it, you simultaneously learned to program maybe a hundred different PLCs on the market such as Wago, Bosch, Turck, etc.
 
+1 OkiePC
I have used all of the Automation Direct Software and would recommend the Do-More Designer for learning. It comes with a simulator that will communicate Modbus TCP through the Ethernet port of the computer. You can also communicate through the serial ports as well.
https://support.automationdirect.com/products/domore.html

Here is a series of videos that will show you how to use this software:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3y71jAPOdZB5LJMMotZP36LvzfdgkgzW

PLC Beginners Guide:
http://accautomation.ca/programming/plc-beginners-guide/

I hope this helps you out.
Regards,
 
I have been searching the web about codesys.
so if codesys is free the only thing that I should is download codesys for free install and program with it and download the code to most of the plc?
 

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