FactoryTalkview ME

[skyfox]

WOW.


This one still has the low resolution graphics from the 1990's at about 10 times the price. just FOUND OUT Automation Direct Brix can Run circles around the CompactLogix at $400 with free programming software vs $5,000 + for the Rockwell controller and more thousands for programming software. Any valid reason to still shell out $$$ at crooks at Rockwell? Anyone else worked with the new OMRON that can smoke out the ContolLogix at fraction of the cost? Why are company's still doing business with Rockwell rip-off artists?

 

[parky]

I realised the same problem starting in the 90's, the introduction of tech connect, subscriptions, the massive increases, abundant versions comming out, this at first seemed to stem from RW & since proliforated to other platforms, One of the main reasons for RW being predominant in the UK is many companies here are American based or owned so a large following for that platform, it is obvious that in the US it is the most specified platform, cannot blame in supporting home products as such. In the early 2000's we replaced a Scada system (upgraded) this was RSV32, we spent over £48,000 on the project, even after spending that kind of money on one system the support from RW was abismal, it meant going to the man with the money to ask for more for a tech connect contract, We sent a PV550 for repair by a company that was owned by RW, the price for repair was more than the cost of a new one with our discount with a local supplier, the fault was a burn on the power supply circuit, something we had had on other occasions, the repair company gave far better prices before they became part of RW. We then took a conscious decision to move our platform to Mitsubishi as we also had a number of existing systems. this proved more cost effective, seemed to have a better support base, although rarely used. Being retired now I'm a little out of the loop, but posts on here seem to show the costs are spiralling out of reach for many companies and there are systems that can do the job as well at a far better cost.
Although a little out of date my first experience with the newer PV600 I noticed that the software was as if RW had taken RSV32 & re-cobbled it at a massive increse of cost compared with the old PBuilder software on the surface it really did seem like it had been used as the basis for the HMI, so how could the development warant the cost of the software.

 

[skyfox]

Parky,


I totally agree with you. Brand loyalty is nice until the brand is no longer playing nice. Speaking of brand loyalty, I had the pleasure of flying on Midlands Airlines in the 90's. It was one of the most enjoyable Airliners I have ever flown on. The service was impeccable. Staff at the counter and in flight, was simply superb and were class acts. So saddened to find out Midlands Airlines no longer exists. Unfortunately here in America, we are stuck with South Worst. We can't find a way to get rid of it.

 

[parky]

Yes there are a number of smaller airlines here that have gone to the wall, we are stuck with a couple of low cost ones, one in particular have come under fire recently due to their poor service & treatment of customers.

 

[arpus4KM]

WOW.


This one still has the low resolution graphics from the 1990's at about 10 times the price. just FOUND OUT Automation Direct Brix can Run circles around the CompactLogix at $400 with free programming software vs $5,000 + for the Rockwell controller and more thousands for programming software. Any valid reason to still shell out $$$ at crooks at Rockwell? Anyone else worked with the new OMRON that can smoke out the ContolLogix at fraction of the cost? Why are company's still doing business with Rockwell rip-off artists?

I mean.... your mileage may vary, but the latest NX processor and NA HMI are the worst... simple stuff is always failing.

Can't make multiple online edits, you have to take it offline into program mode and do a full synchronization or it's internal mapping gets screwed up so bad it just plain stops communicating to specific parts of the memory... (told this per their support when I had issues with comms after making some changes online).

the NA5 HMI in the project loses it's tag locations, to get it to recover I have to delete 500 tags and then just Undo it to get them out of the "Pink" and allow it to build the hmi again. When I had a support guy teamviewered in to see the problem, he had no words for it and no clue as to why it was happening.

when making new objects in the NA5 using Sysmac studio, if you don't get the data type correct it doesn't tell you there is a problem with it until you attempt to rebuild the HMI. and when you rebuild it just says "failed to rebuild" and tells you to check the output window, which just says it failed also... and the only option is to upload, no download, so you lose any work you did if you can't scour out that one data type that doesn't match the tag on the other end. That to me is insane. if you make a whole HMI offline and have one mistake, it can't tell you what the problem is, or even just let it go and show you a bad data connection like the other brands do.





Like I said, your mileage may vary, and everything has it's quirks... but Omron is far from perfect.

 

[Slwagner73]

From a maintenance standpoint, A-B items used to be readily available from local venders, instead of having to purchase "on-line" and hope UPS did it's job and got it to you quickly. Now, with unrealistic lead-times being what they are, that argument no longer stands.
So, the on-line alternatives are starting to really make more sense.

 

[James Mcquade]

i am beginning to see a shift away from AB and more to Siemens, then Mitsubishi, Omron, Automation Direct.
the biggest reason for RA is that everyone knows the software, but as their prices sky rocket, more companies are looking elsewhere for plc's.
HINT HINT Rockwell, your customer base is beginning to shrink.
james

 

[cardosocea]

One of the main reasons for RW being predominant in the UK is many companies here are American based or owned so a large following for that platform

This is changing though... maybe it's the random luck of working for two different chemical companies where controls engineers made it to the top, but they sure as hell aren't happy with Rockwell.

It was interesting as one site I was on, the guys there were total Rockwell fanboys and instilled that in every kid starting there as well, so they forced me to upgrade their aging PLC5s to whatever Rockwell offered. During the exercise, I realized the PLC5s were not indeed the main risk for the company, instead we had to swap out the Control Logix because the IO chosen was no longer made and there was no upgrade path that allowed us to keep the processor.

Month and a half in, I present it to the VP in Houston and he flat out told me he will not give me any money until I put any other platform in the market against Rockwell and numbers on lost production and cost of implementation side by side. He then hinted that if we get PCS7, the money is ours... pronto.

I went back on the assumptions, called in Siemens and lo and behold, the price difference was abysmal. They also threw in obsolescence assistance for free (effectively asking them to run an Excel sheet through their lifecycle part status and give us feedback) whilst Rockwell wanted 5k to get someone to do that for me. LOL Needless to say I moved that site to Siemens, am severely hated by people there and some that never even met me or worked with me or worked with Siemens kit. LOLOL

Rockwell are by far the lowest value around and it's also clear now they have zero strategy to propel automation further and instead buy whatever they think the market wants and rebrand it as their own. If you look at their acquisitions this is very clear. Zero development or vision to bring something good, just catching up whilst keeping their install base where possible.

 

[dummy_bit]

$20k on a Rockwell Tech connect annual contract is abysmal for smaller factories... that's not including the software "licenses."

I went back on the assumptions, called in Siemens and lo and behold, the price difference was abysmal. They also threw in obsolescence assistance for free (effectively asking them to run an Excel sheet through their lifecycle part status and give us feedback) whilst Rockwell wanted 5k to get someone to do that for me. LOL

Our supplier tried pitching this to us for 30min before we pulled out our own spreadsheet completed with obsolescence highlighting and possible engineered solutions. Their faces were priceless.

 

[cardosocea]

Our supplier tried pitching this to us for 30min before we pulled out our own spreadsheet completed with obsolescence highlighting and possible engineered solutions. Their faces were priceless.

And you know what? Rockwell doesn't shut up about it, despite me giving them the list of current hardware on site and buying the very last spares on a few of those items already from them.

I ended up creating a little Python script to match my parts against their lifecycle and spit out the result, but didn't have the heart to show that to them yet.

Speaking of which, perhaps I should check if it works and dump it on GitHub and here. It was somewhat tricky as you had to log in first, pull a session ID from the browser and type it into the script for it to run, but nothing that exotic a manual can't cover.

 

[arpus4KM]

$20k on a Rockwell Tech connect annual contract is abysmal for smaller factories... that's not including the software "licenses."



Our supplier tried pitching this to us for 30min before we pulled out our own spreadsheet completed with obsolescence highlighting and possible engineered solutions. Their faces were priceless.

... but how many machines does a "smaller factory" have? and why would they need a tech connect contract in the first place if they only have 10 or less machines?

Tech connect is awesome, it's the best support for any of the manufacturers I've dealt with.


out of ABB, Omron, Automation direct. AD comes close, but is still not on par with the knowledgebase for RA.






I've had a few customers that complained that they would have to pay 2k for a processor, another 1500 for the 2 IO cards they need for their small project. and then another 2-3k for a smaller PV. and I get it, 8k just for the basic hardware to get the machine built... but the PLC is hardly the most expensive part of a project when the entire frame and other components are specialty built as well, and if the machine is being built to make money then it shouldn't be a huge part of the cost if it costs an extra 3-4k.

who is approving the building of machines with such a terrible ROI in the first place?

 

[dummy_bit]

... but how many machines does a "smaller factory" have? and why would they need a tech connect contract in the first place if they only have 10 or less machines?

3 Line factory, one sub-system at each line contains up to 35 VFDs for example

who is approving the building of machines with such a terrible ROI in the first place?

I'm talking machines that are end of life +25 years... companies that become too cheap and put themselves into an obsolescence hole. I'm still trying to support 1305 VFDs (discontinued 10+ years ago) where the faceplates have shattered and fallen into the bottom of panels. When they see how much an obsolete replacement is, they just say make it work with what's on hand.

 

[arpus4KM]

3 Line factory, one sub-system at each line contains up to 35 VFDs for example



I'm talking machines that are end of life +25 years... companies that become too cheap and put themselves into an obsolescence hole. I'm still trying to support 1305 VFDs (discontinued 10+ years ago) where the faceplates have shattered and fallen into the bottom of panels. When they see how much an obsolete replacement is, they just say make it work with what's on hand.

but.... that's still a poorly ran plant, 25 years of running and they couldn't set aside a budget for at least some equipment upgrades with the money the machine is making by being in production? I've encountered plenty of these, in fact that's what another thread I just made dealing with TopDoc files for a PLC2 are concerning. The thing about these places is that they can afford to replace the machines and purchase the new equipment, it's just going to go on the stack of debt the companies keep in order to grow. They just complain about the minor cost of upgrades over time because the longer they can run the existing thing, the less they've spent on it over time.

sure your brakes need to be replaced this month, and that's the recommended time to replace them, but you have another 1/8" of pad left, so run it til we get all the life out of them or we will just be wasting that little bit of pad.. Just like they could have replaced those 1305 units a while ago when they became a liability and obsolete.... but since they didn't look at how much "free time" they got out of them. Seems like these places either keep everything up to date with constant PMs and obsolescence checks, or they just run it to failure and eat the cost justifying it with every day since the suggest replacement date counting as a win.

 

[joseph_e2]

Another issue I've seen delaying upgrades is other equipment in the line. At my last place, we had a critical line controlled by a PLC-5 that used RIO to communicate to a number of old drives via DSI adapters (I think that's what they were called). It also had a bunch of the old 1791 block IO modules, a couple of remote 1785 racks, and a couple of PV Standard HMIs, all on RIO. When a single VFD went out, we had to replace it with something else, but we lost some of the functionality because it couldn't be connected to the RIO network directly and didn't work with the DSI adapter.



I totally understand and agree to needing a plan to get out of the obsolescence hole, but sometimes you end up behind the 8-ball and can't get out without a HUGE investment in capital and downtime. We were able to put in a few incremental upgrades with a CompactLogix PLC talking to the PLC 5 via a DHRIO module in a ControlLogix chassis, but that wouldn't work for everything on the line.

 

[skyfox]

But I still have to comeback to my original statement that I made. FactorytTalkView ME, is the same bug ridden piece of garbage that I first used in the 1990's. Same crashes, Samedata base corruptions, same outdated graphics library in 2022, but for a 10x increase in price. Rockwell renaming and reselling the same old GARBAGE for inflated prices is the issue at hand here. For the ones that say smaller airliners crash and burn, I have yet to replace an AutomationDirect PLC or a C-more screen due to a failure going back 10 + years. I have replaced over 30+ PanelView sixes in that same time frame, all used in food processing industries, simply failing their touch functions on parts of the screen. Price a C-more and price a PanelView in 2023 for your next customer. Good luck supporting Rockwell's horrible business model. Even the factories in OHIO, Rockwell's own home town, are looking for a divorce from them. We gladly supply many of them with Omron's, Mitsubishis and AutomationDirect's product offerings for a FRACTION OF THE COST. At the end of the day, both parties come out feeling like it was a win-win for both sides, rather than having the feeling of getting raped and pillaged by Rockwell. It is high time that the Automation industry starts their very own ME-TOO MOVEMENT.