alia176
Member
Hello folks,
I've been lurking in this forum for some time and find this site to be an excellent resource. I hope to contribute to it some day.
My small company is going to evaluate GE's Micro line of PLCs for the fresh water and waste water clients. Those of you who have used both line of PLCs, can you give me some feedback (pros/cons) on them? We are suppose to have a meeting with our GE distributor tomorrow during which we'll be shown a nice dog & pony show I'm sure.
Here's a little background on us: we've been using GE IFIX 5.0 SCADA package for our clients for some time. Couple of our clients are using Modicon PLCs with IFIX and one is using ICONICS with a Modicon. However, these Modicons are obsolete and we, as their integrator, need to decide which direction to take them.
My employer is intimately familiar with the MicroLogix 1000 & 1500 PLCs and uses them in oem packages that we build and sell. He states that they're very robust PLCs but also becoming more expensive.
Apparently AB is falling behind on the manufacturing of these PLCs and supply is a little backed up. My local dist tells us that the supply chain may return to normal in July 2010.
Our Allen Bradley support has been ok at best. My employer tells me that he doesn't "enjoy" talking to tech support at Rockwell as they aren't the most forthcoming bunch. Most of his questions are answered by "go check out our knowledge base" or something similar. We let our support contract lapse two months ago with Rockwell.
Our GE dist is extraordinarily easy to work with but we've only interfaced with them heavily on IFIX related items. We're hoping that their GE plc support staff is just as helpful and friendly. We are a GE Solution Provider so there is a fair amount of $$ investment with this distributor. As you can imagine, the dist is tickled pink at the thought of selling us the Micro PLCs as we'll be purchasing quite a bit throughout the year on various water system projects (if we go the GE route).
Things we like so far about GE Micro Family:
- use a single software to program all PLCs. Proficy Machine
- most competitively priced than AB plc's
- life cycle is not due to mature anytime soon.
What we need to find out:
- hardware robust in an industrial environment?
- easy to communicate with PLCs using Proficy Machine?
- does it cost $$ to include Ethernet port module to a PLC?
- how big of a task will it be to convert existing Modicon and AB plc programs over to GE plc?
Well, I think this post is long enough for now. Our company takes this decision very heavily so we want to make sure that we know what we're getting into. I hope that you experiences will help us deciding our course of action.
Thanks in advance (TIA) for your inputs.
Ash
I've been lurking in this forum for some time and find this site to be an excellent resource. I hope to contribute to it some day.
My small company is going to evaluate GE's Micro line of PLCs for the fresh water and waste water clients. Those of you who have used both line of PLCs, can you give me some feedback (pros/cons) on them? We are suppose to have a meeting with our GE distributor tomorrow during which we'll be shown a nice dog & pony show I'm sure.
Here's a little background on us: we've been using GE IFIX 5.0 SCADA package for our clients for some time. Couple of our clients are using Modicon PLCs with IFIX and one is using ICONICS with a Modicon. However, these Modicons are obsolete and we, as their integrator, need to decide which direction to take them.
My employer is intimately familiar with the MicroLogix 1000 & 1500 PLCs and uses them in oem packages that we build and sell. He states that they're very robust PLCs but also becoming more expensive.
Apparently AB is falling behind on the manufacturing of these PLCs and supply is a little backed up. My local dist tells us that the supply chain may return to normal in July 2010.
Our Allen Bradley support has been ok at best. My employer tells me that he doesn't "enjoy" talking to tech support at Rockwell as they aren't the most forthcoming bunch. Most of his questions are answered by "go check out our knowledge base" or something similar. We let our support contract lapse two months ago with Rockwell.
Our GE dist is extraordinarily easy to work with but we've only interfaced with them heavily on IFIX related items. We're hoping that their GE plc support staff is just as helpful and friendly. We are a GE Solution Provider so there is a fair amount of $$ investment with this distributor. As you can imagine, the dist is tickled pink at the thought of selling us the Micro PLCs as we'll be purchasing quite a bit throughout the year on various water system projects (if we go the GE route).
Things we like so far about GE Micro Family:
- use a single software to program all PLCs. Proficy Machine
- most competitively priced than AB plc's
- life cycle is not due to mature anytime soon.
What we need to find out:
- hardware robust in an industrial environment?
- easy to communicate with PLCs using Proficy Machine?
- does it cost $$ to include Ethernet port module to a PLC?
- how big of a task will it be to convert existing Modicon and AB plc programs over to GE plc?
Well, I think this post is long enough for now. Our company takes this decision very heavily so we want to make sure that we know what we're getting into. I hope that you experiences will help us deciding our course of action.
Thanks in advance (TIA) for your inputs.
Ash