New Productivity P2000 AutomationDirect

[Bullzi]

Hello everyone,
I decided to revive a old thread because I have finally had a chance to work with the Productivity 2000 Starter Kit.

I have to say that overall I am impressed!! The Hardware seems to be of decent quality. The modules wobble a little in the chassis. I was a little concerned as I used the simulator switch input, but they don't lose connection so I guess there isn't much to worry about.

To my surprise, the software is very good. Being a a AB guy it didn't take me long to get up to speed with the software. There are a few things that I miss from using AB but for the most part I made a fairly complicated program in not time at all. The free 30 day of training videos help too because they help you with some of the new features of the P2000. Things like the debounce and toggle instruction are really time savers. Basicly they eliminate the timers for debounce and flip-flops for the output toggles that we all use.

If you have a customer that doesn't have a PLC brand they use or one of those "Tight" jobs the P2000 would be a very good PLC to quote. The best part is you wont have to settle for a lower performing processor in order to save a few $$.

As I work with the P2000 more I will post my adventures. Hopefully this will help others out that might be thinking of using this platform.

 

[OkiePC]

I just deployed my first P2000. I have three of them. A MAIN PLC that polls the remotes over UHF radios. I am thoroughly impressed. I really like the analog readings right on the cards. I knew this would be handy, and in the field it is awesome.

The other thing that made this system shine is the fact that the Modbus Message instructions allow me to read multiple different data types from a remote unit into what ever tags I want all within a single message. With other PLCs, this could still be done, but would mean that I do a much of manipulation to convert data types (like reals from DINTs).

There are a few things the editor needs to make it better, but I did fire off a wish list to A/D and I am sure I am not the only one.

I like the fact that all my comments are stored in the PLC (optional), and that I have a boatload of memory and CPU speed. This system doesn't need the speed or the memory, but it is there for me.

I don't like all the options for tags : retentive, force, initial forced, initial value... I am sure there may come a time when I find a use for more of these things. I had to do some trials to make sure I made them "just plain retentive" like A/B. Make them all retentive and if I want something forgotten, make me code that or uncheck something. I finally figured out that in the editor I needed to turn on the option for "Upload current retentive values and copy to initial values" to keep my numbers from being blown away when I did a "stop mode transfer".

All in all, I really like this little beast.

 

[rdrast]

First foray into the P2000, and it's going to be a largish one... 8 processors and racks networked together.
I've just ordered the initial hardware, but have been working on the code... The editor is good, but not great yet, but I'm sure as I work more with it, it will become more intuitive. So far, I can do everything I need to, and a lot more. I'm anxious to get the actual hardware, and I'll report back, but the onboard diagnostics for every point, including analog, is extremely important for this project.

 

[R_C]

How is your project with the AD processors going?
Any major problems with the software or hardware?