nobody speaks SCHNEIDER

[Tom Jenkins]

I agree with Pierre's assesment - the biggest problem is marketing and a totally disoriented distributor channel - in the US anyway. The Concept software is OK - some good things, some bad things, but overall nothing that makes me want to rave. The pricing structure is reasonable for hardware and software, but not exciting. I find the Momentum to be a little cheezy and cheap, and the Quantum is a little pricey. In general the product is not so superior that it sells itself, and there is nobody really pushing the product.

 

[Pierre]

Five or six years ago I called the Modicon support line because I was having BIG problems connecting an old 9xx serie with a GE Serie 6.

So they transfer me here and there and finally I was talking with an older EE and when I told him that I was amazed how much he knew about this stuff.

I could barelly follow his instruction with the 15 years old manual I had in hand.

He told me "Of course I know my stuff, I wrote the darn manual".

So I laught and he told me "I really wrote the manual, look at page number xx"

And I looked and he had.

I guess its memory of the good old days. Remember guys? When AB had a 800 line and would not dare to give us a "case number"

Now its all profit centers.

 

[Toni Jesus]

My opinion about Schneider

HI!

I've been working with Schneider's products from the start ( 15 years ago )and they have very good products compared with other brands.

We have to note that plc's brands importance may vary depending in the country we are talking about ex; France & Protugal = Telemecanique, Austria = Modicon, US = Square-D...

An other reason for variability is the industrie preferences per ex in Protugal:cement industrie use mostly Telemecanique, Salt industrie use Modion...

Note that all brands; Telemecanique, Modicon, Square-D are Schneider brands. It means that not all brands are present and with the same importance in all countrys

OK, sometimes prices is the most importante item, but, we can't forget that lowest price doesn't mean good assistance from the brand owner when you need a spare part realy fast or help when a serious problem come's up. If one brand have a great distributor and a good logistic in some area that brand will be in almost all industries in that area.

Plus, many people = many different ways of thinking, so, they are many differents way's to program a PLC ( they all work ) that's why some PLC's brands are more accepted than others. Take Graphcet programming, also called "Gr7", for me is very easy a and usefull because the program is very well structured, but for some other people opinion, its "complicated" because they dont know how to program or they started programming with some other brand or with another method per ex; Instruction list "IL", Function Block Diagram "FBD" or Ladder Logique Diagram "LD".

ciao

Toni

 

[zimbricd]

I have to agree with Pierre. The Modicon Quantum and momentum are by far the easiest to program and have more than enough power for most applications. I can honestly express this opinion after having been a Schneider application engineer for eight years. I am now working as a controls engineer for the past 18 months and have programmed Siemens S7, AB (all) and GE 90-30 and I keep coming back to Schneider, both PL7 and Concept as being far better than any of their competition.

Schneider's biggest drawback is a lack of vision on the part of management and marketing. The French have continually found ways to foul up a good product. Unfortunately for the Modicon and Telemecanique PLCs, the marketshare will continue to fall off as AB takes a much more aggressive path in pushing their inferior and over-complicated products down the collective throat of the world-wide automation industry. I spent a long time helping others to use Schneider PLCs and now I can't get a chance to implement any systems for "real" because no one want to see past the poor marketing and sales and use a superior product. RIP Schneider Automation, you have fans but alas, you are trying to kill us too...

 

[Pierre]

I am so ever happy to welcome zimbricd . You have the vocabulary I will never master and you also know you stuff. Bravo, bravissimo!

 

[BobB]

Lots of good interesting stuff in this thread.

Grafcet is good for some programs, as are Instruction List, Function Block and Ladder. The ideal is to have all forms of programming languages available in the software as all have their good and bad points for certain types of programming. This allows use of the different languages for program segments that suit each best.

For example, FBC is great for BMS type control loops that have been tested and can be re-used time and time again for the same routines (eg Modutrol motors for air conditioning). One often has many repeats of the same block with different I/O. Cuts down software development time considerably.

The problem is that programs written in the various languages cannot always be converted to the other forms. Sometimes but not always.

I have programmed AB (SLC), Siemens, Hitachi, Mitsubishi, GE 90-30, Modicon, Twido and Omron over the last few years.

GE - Logicmaster 90 was pretty awful and their latest Windows based offering is really not very good.

AB - not too bad (second choice) but could be improved immensely.

Hitachi - OK only. Not preferred.

Mitsubishi - as Hitachi.

Siemens - hope I never see another one. Yes, I know a lot of people like Siemens but I am not one of them. Also had many hardware compatability problems the last time I used them - processor could not see expansion rack etc.

Twido - a good idea but lousy software and no on line programming. Will not use them in small control panels again because of the software and no online programming. Going back to the more expensive Omron CPM1A and CPM2A.

Modicon TSX Premium - a great little PLC but PL7 and Concept are really "how's your father". Usable but not up to the pace for fast program development. I hear they have a new offering that is supposed to be the "ants pants" but have not seen it yet. Will reserve judgement until I get to play with it.

Omron CX-Programmer - yes please (first choice). Configurable with full use of short cuts and function keys, auto online (searches the serial port for PLCs) and lots of features too numerous to list. One set of software to do all PLCs except the programmable ZEN relay. Unfortunately, only ladder at this stage but I have seen a version that is to be released soon with some IEC languages with the others to follow. Could also do with improvements but I guess we never get the best of all worlds with any brand.

I have used Device Net, Profibus, ASI and proprietary I/O networks, prorietary networks and Ethernet to SCADA systems with some brands, not all, and find implemetations vary greatly. Ethernet is great for use with a SCADA system but I am not convinced yet for peer to peer communications. Prefer a token ring based network.

Device Net is a typical example. AB Device Net configurator is really pretty awful but the Omron offering is fantastic. A shame we cannot use our favourite software across boundaries - wishful thinking.
beerchug

 

[kalle]

Nobody speaks SCHNEIDER

But what is a Schneider PLC?

After buying/merging etc differente corporation, there are or have been, several PLCs brands within Group Schneider:

- Telemecanique
- April
- Square-D
- Modicon
- ??
(Did AEG and Merlin-Gerin have own PLCs?)

The same with MMI (ups I mean HMI...)
Proface bought Xycom and later Group Schneider bought Proface. (Yes I hope they throw Magelis in the bin)

In addition to other SCADA software, Group Schneider also have their own version of USData's Factory Link, with its own name.

Group Schneider looks like an active partner in the market.


My experience with PLCs from Group Schneider has been some projects with the Telemecanique PLCs Micro and Premium.
They are not my first choice, it was because of decisions made by customer's.

But there was functionality that I DID like, e.g.

- Structured text (writing program BASIC-like)
- Arrays, index etc
- Many functions
- DFB: Possibility to write own funtion blocks, like the multi-point scaling/convert function I postet some weeks ago:

[attachment]

With the size of Group Schneider, I think we are stuck with them for many years.
But as I said, Telemecanique is not my first choice, and the other brands within Group Schneider have I no experience with.

 

[Pierre]

Nobody speaks SCHNEIDER
...But as I said, Telemecanique is not my first choice...

I have NEVER met someone who likes the Télémécanique PLC.

Any brave ones out there?

 

[Eric Nelson]

I have NEVER met someone who likes the Télémécanique PLC.

And not even their most recent offering (see THIS thread)...

beerchug

-Eric

 

[kalle]

Don't read between lines...

Originally posted by Pierre

Originally posted by kalle
Nobody speaks SCHNEIDER
...But as I said, Telemecanique is not my first choice

I have NEVER met someone who likes the Télémécanique PLC.

Any brave ones out there?

Telemecanique is a OK PLC, especially the Premium.

What I said was that it wasn't my first choice, but it isn't my least choice either! (As long there isn't a customer demand to only use the ladder-editor....)

As I said, there is many plus, like:

- Structured text
- Arrays, index etc. (Like the parameter to the DFB on the picture: %MW200[%MW199]:20)
- Many functions
- DFB
- Grafcet

 

[Bitmore]

www.control.com is geared for Schneider

 

[undercontrol]

It's just because unlike AB or Siemens, there's not so many problems encountered with Modicon. Most of the times, posts regarding AB or Siemens, are about PROBLEMS!!!

 

[BobB]

Did AEG and Merlin-Gerin have own PLCs?)

AEG did.

The TSX Premium is not a bad PLC with lots of communications options. But, Concept and Unity (now that I have had a chance to have a look at it) are absolutely awfull unless you want to program in anything except ladder.

US and OZZ like ladder. FB is great but the others are not popular at all outside of Europe from what I can see. Ladder in Unity is, at best, an afterthought.

Group Schneider looks like an active partner in the market.

In OZZ too. Why would anyone want to buy from a competitor?

 

[PhilipW]

Bob.

I have to chuckle at your post. I am literally in the middle of typing up a variation letter listing all the reasons why a job that should have taken 80 hours has ballooned out to 200 mainly due to Unity Pro's insane lack of productivity.

Even if you do finish up prgramming the thing in Structured Text (which the poor end user HATES!!) there are still a whole bunch of things about the TSX which are just plain awful.

Basically Schneider have made the mistake of taking an SLC500 style platform and shoehorning onto it a ControlLogix style processor WIHTOUT the power of the CIP messaging system. As a result the comms is a joke.

Quote

[font=Verdana, sans-serif]Wonderware to PLC:[/font]

[font=Verdana, sans-serif]Despite the fact that all the PLC logic uses symbolic addresses...they are NOT accessible externally. In order to access them it is necessary to add mapping code to Read/Write them to “Located Variables” which are fixed arrays of elementary data elements. The Wonderware driver then uses the very dated Modbus addressing scheme to attach to them. This not only takes longer to achieve but means that every small modification between the HMI and the PLC needs to be changed: [/font]

1. [font=Verdana, sans-serif]In the PLC logic, using "Unlocated Variable" symbolic tag names, eg K6.Flow.SP[/font]
   
2. [font=Verdana, sans-serif]Which are mapped onto elementary tag arrays, eg Real[10] [/font]
   
3. [font=Verdana, sans-serif]Which are mapped onto “Located Variables”, eg %MW20[/font]
   
4. [font=Verdana, sans-serif]In the Wonderware Tag database, using Modbus notation, eg 400020[/font]
   
   

[font=Verdana, sans-serif]All four locations use different naming schemes. Work that should have taken about 8 hours took 40.[/font]


This isn't even the worst example, I could go on and on for pages more...

 

[BobB]

Unity Pro's insane lack of productivity

Here!!! Here!!!

Structured Text (which the poor end user HATES!!)

So do I!!!!

Despite the fact that all the PLC logic uses symbolic addresses...they are NOT accessible externally

I hear that Citect has a "unified" approach with Schneider that allows export of symbols, addresses etc. Have not seen it yet. Apparently the same arrangement with AB and 1 other (Siemens maybe? Not sure).

I walked away from a $1 million job in Sydney due to the consultant - an academic electrical engineer. Got sick of "head bashing". A software man, Eberle fan, (no electrical experience) took on the job with someone else. The spec called for hot standby PLC's. I offered Omron CS1 dual redundant. This guy offered TSX Premium warm standby and got the job over several others after I pulled out. Of course they were a lot cheaper. Apparently, the TSX Premiums are sitting in the corner of the workshop and everyone glares at them occassionally.

Says it all I think!!! Will have to give him a phone call and see how they are going. (Sarcasm???)

By the way Philip, you must consider changing the "Islands on the edge of the world" to "the shaky isles" as we know you all in OZZ!!

Must admit though the Marlborough Sav Blancs are great. Shame about the reds. Can't beat Coonawarra or Hunter in Ozz for reds.