ControlLogix ver 20 minor revs...best choice for ver 18 upgrade

[williamlove]

When did FactoryTalk Services get intertwined with ControlLogix? I ask this because I have been on Studio 5000 ver 31 up for a while and forgot what happened with ver 20.

I have a ver 18 project that I must upgrade to ver 20. (It cannot be upgraded further.) Several choices available. I'm leaning towards 20.04. But I recall that ver 20 had some issues and around that time FactoryTalk came into the picture. There are slightly earlier versions of 20 available, I think maybe 20.01. But I have 20.04. However, the ver 20 choice I make will actually be installed on another computer. Since that computer is virgin, I wanted to get some tips if anyone has any thoughts on the best ver 20 rev to pick. I'm leaning towards ver 20.04 since I successfully upgraded the ACD file to that on my normal machine.

 

[Ken Roach]

I strongly recommend you simply upgrade to the latest release of each:

RSLogix 5000 version 20.05
ControlLogix firmware 20.019

You won't have to be concerned with the minor version incompatibility issues; RSLogix 5000 version 20.05 will work with any v20.x firmware.

And don't fret about FactoryTalk services platform or RSLinx compatibility: just do a fresh installation of RSLogix 5000 v20.05 and the correct components and utilities should come with it.

 

[williamlove]

You are the first person we've reached who seems to really know what they are talking about.
The PLC is a 1756-L61/B, a Logix 5561. Running firmware 18.011.
The flash file we downloaded is the one you recommended.
We're planning on using RSLogix 5000 version 20.05 now.
I'm still wondering, can you tell me why a lot of places froze at ver 20.03? And when did FactoryTalk enter the picture? Do you know the story on that whole mess?

 

[dmroeder]

You are the first person we've reached who seems to really know what they are talking about.
The PLC is a 1756-L61/B, a Logix 5561. Running firmware 18.011.
The flash file we downloaded is the one you recommended.
We're planning on using RSLogix 5000 version 20.05 now.
I'm still wondering, can you tell me why a lot of places froze at ver 20.03? And when did FactoryTalk enter the picture? Do you know the story on that whole mess?

v20.03 was "special"

https://theautomationblog.com/what-you-need-to-know-before-upgrading-to-rslogix-5000-version-20-03/

 

[williamlove]

Sites must have froze at 20.01 to avoid that situation described in the blog post.

Thank you both for your replies, they helped.

 

[VAN]

I strongly recommend you simply upgrade to the latest release of each:

RSLogix 5000 version 20.05
ControlLogix firmware 20.019

You won't have to be concerned with the minor version incompatibility issues; RSLogix 5000 version 20.05 will work with any v20.x firmware.

And don't fret about FactoryTalk services platform or RSLinx compatibility: just do a fresh installation of RSLogix 5000 v20.05 and the correct components and utilities should come with it.

If you have scada I think version ##.019 had issues with how it assigns memory. We had to go back to version ##.018 because of it.

 

[dmroeder]

Sites must have froze at 20.01 to avoid that situation described in the blog post.

Thank you both for your replies, they helped.

v20.03 caused a lot of heartache for those who unwittingly used the latest. We have been trained for more than a decade that there are no compatibility issues between minor revisions. Then came along 20.03 and a minor rev of v21 that broke this rule.

Months later, to address this, Rockwell released v20.04, which took care of the compatibility issue. v20.05 was an update to v20.04.

The "specialness" had do to with some security problems that researchers found, Rockwell felt it were necessary to release a minor rev to fix them that broke compatibility with other minor revs.

 

[pturmel]

Fair warning: v20.19 firmware disables the high-performance physical memory access services that many OPC drivers depend on. Detailed discussions on the Ignition forum and documentation:


https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/issue-with-compactlogix-1768-l43-reading-tags/12337


https://docs.inductiveautomation.com/display/DOC81/Allen+Bradley+Ethernet

 

[williamlove]

Thank you, I have warned the guys to check and make sure OPC is not involved. If it is, we will consider this further, or just use firmware ver 18.

 

[Ken Roach]

Thanks very much, pturmel, for that specific issue and details about it.

I've had... let's say more than my share of third party reverse engineering fights, up to and including having a customer's CEO call Rockwell's CEO and demand that he have me fired for not providing third parties with libraries not offered for licensing.

 

[pturmel]

That one wasn't even a fight, really. Logix v21 introduced data access optimization based on symbol instance numbers and closed off the physical memory access. Because it was a huge security hole--it bypasses tag and UDT external access==None.


Older hardware can't go past v20, so this last v20 also closes the security hole. (But without implementing the instance-number symbol access, IIUC.)