PLC AB - Firmware Question

Hello everyone,

I have a question about updating a firmware for an AB's PLC.

My current PLC information is:

Vendor: Allen-Bradley
Type: 1756-L71S ControlLogix5571S Safety Controller
Revision: 20.13

I would like to upgrade the firmware revision to 30.014 but my question is that the firmware revision changed the name to "Firmware for GuardLogix 5570 Safety (1756-L7) v30.014" instead of "Firmware for 1756-L71S v2X.XX" like older revisions.

Would it be alright to upgrade the firmware from 20.13 (1756-L71S) to the new one? On ControlFLASH, if I open the menu of "1756-L71S", the newest revision I see is the "28.012" and if I open the "GuardLogix 5570 Safety (1756-L7)" menu, I see the revision 30.014 that I downloaded.

I'm not usually of upgrading older PLC to its newest revisions. ControlFLASH accepts my controller information with "GuardLogix 5570 Safety (1756-L7)", but I'm not sure if I could proceed without problems.

Thank you for your responses.

Welcome to the PLCTalk forum community ! That's an excellent (and very careful) question.

My guess is that at some point around when v30 firmware was being released, RA Tech Support had received enough phone calls from users who didn't know that the "S" on the end of the part number meant it was a GuardLogix controller, or who were concerned that there were separate firmware categories for each model/memory size.

So they just changed the category names that ControlFlash uses to organize firmware releases. The three categories for "1756-L71S" (and L72S and L73S) became just one category, "GuardLogix 5570 Safety (1756-L7)".

Because you're running an older 20.xx firmware GuardLogix, the editing software is called "RSLogix 5000", and it has the Safety editor license enabled.

For version 21 and later, "RSLogix 5000" was re-named "Studio 5000 Logix Designer". It's the same software, but a little different look-and-feel.

Because ControlLogix has always required an installation of the correct "RSLogix" or "Studio 5000" software to match the Major Revision of the controller, to use that controller after loading v30.xx firmware onto it, you will need Studio 5000 Logix Designer v30, with the Safety editor license enabled.

Most of the time you've got a license that happily supports the newest version, and all you need to do is install it.

But make sure that your software is ready before you do that firmware upgrade.


And again, welcome the PLCTalk forum !