PID Autotune Removed from Studio 5000 v33

[Dayvieboy]

It is now an add on license option for $ 713

After a week of nobody @ Rockwell
being able to tell me why my Auto tune was grayed out...

I finally received an answer in the from of a brand new tech note

Sales did not know it
Tech Help did not know it
Engineering did not know it

So if you need Autotune & don't have $ 713
Avoid the upgrade to Firmware v33

Or do as we did & downgrade to v32 until we get the paperwork done

 

[BobB]

That is bloody painful! Rip off for mine!

 

[JeremyM]

Expanding Human Possibility™

Guess I found something else to roll, on top of PAx moving to licensed hardware.

 

[saultgeorge]

Avoid the upgrade to Firmware v33...

Although we don't use PID here at an automotive supplier, we've installed V. 33. There's a big issue when I close a program in V. 33 it gives me a fatal error. Haven't tracked that down yet, probably a W10 update or something.
Rockwell is going to get too greedy and lose some customers.

 

[jstolaruk]

Rockwell is going to get too greedy and lose some customers.

The small companies maybe but the big ones don't feel those costs compared to their total maintenance budgets or capital expenditures for new equipment; its a very tiny fraction of the total monies involved.

As a self-employed integrator, I have no influence on the brand of PLC corporate chooses so I have no choice but to pay the license fees or choose not to work with them. If the project is $100M of new equipment, those fee increases won't sway the choice. They're looking for hardware and support that will still be around in ten years. The only choices are Siemens, RA, Fanuc, ABB, etc. and some others with proven histories.

So, I pay the fees and bump my rates. No one complains amazingly.

 

[Peter Nachtwey]

I would have used my own. What you guys don't seem to realize is that an auto tuner will normally work for one specific kind of system. It it is easy to auto tune FOPDT and SOPDT. This has been demonstrated over the last few months. Then obviously I can tune position, velocity and force systems for use in what I do. All require a slightly different model and formulas for calculating controller gains. So I don't see where one specific auto tuner is good enough to tune all these different types of systems and to imply otherwise is misleading.

 

[TWS]

This explains the differences: https://literature.rockwellautomation.com/idc/groups/literature/documents/qr/9324-qr001_-en-p.pdf
I am sure one day RA will change perpetual licenses into subscription only.

 

[drbitboy]

This explains the differences: https://literature.rockwellautomation.com/idc/groups/literature/documents/qr/9324-qr001_-en-p.pdf
I am sure one day RA will change perpetual licenses into subscription only.

The new(old?) Rockwell logo:

 

[busarider29]

The small companies maybe but the big ones don't feel those costs compared to their total maintenance budgets or capital expenditures for new equipment; its a very tiny fraction of the total monies involved.

As a self-employed integrator, I have no influence on the brand of PLC corporate chooses so I have no choice but to pay the license fees or choose not to work with them. If the project is $100M of new equipment, those fee increases won't sway the choice. They're looking for hardware and support that will still be around in ten years. The only choices are Siemens, RA, Fanuc, ABB, etc. and some others with proven histories.

So, I pay the fees and bump my rates. No one complains amazingly.

Just my opinion, but RA's business model just cannot sustain over the long term, especially with upcoming players rising up offering up strong competition. Some of this competition having latest innovative technologies and at lower costs to the customer than what Rockwell can offer. RA is going to come to a cross-roads at some point, and I believe that is a mathematical certainty. They will either need to beat the competition in price-to-performance ratio, OR......beat the competition with innovation. Right now, they can do neither of those things. In fact, they are absolutely terrible at both. Their price-to-performance ratio for any of their products is sky high. Moreover, they are not an innovative company, not by a long shot! All of that is going to catch up to them eventually. Sure, they may be able to retain many of their big customers and long-lasting customers, and that may be good enough for them. But they aren't going to gain new customers, or at the very least, they won't gain nearly as many new customers as they potentially could have.

Why force customers to pay for something in a newer version of your software, that they didn't have to pay for before in previous versions??? Did RA enhance and make that feature better, hence justifying making the feature a premium?? Nope. It was just to increase profits, nothing else. That's how RA rolls. Instead of offering great innovative products that the customer will love and buy, RA just raises prices, and charges a premium for everything. In a nutshell, that's their business model.

They lost us as a customer for all those reasons mentioned above and more. We moved away from RA seven years ago and haven't looked back.

Rising competition in the Industrial Automation sector

Innovator's Dilemma

 

[jstolaruk]

Just my opinion, but RA's business model just cannot sustain over the long term, especially with upcoming players rising up offering up strong competition. Some of this competition having latest innovative technologies and at lower costs to the customer than what Rockwell can offer. RA is going to come to a cross-roads at some point, and I believe that is a mathematical certainty. They will either need to beat the competition in price-to-performance ratio, OR......beat the competition with innovation. Right now, they can do neither of those things. In fact, they are absolutely terrible at both. Their price-to-performance ratio for any of their products is sky high. Moreover, they are not an innovative company, not by a long shot! All of that is going to catch up to them eventually. Sure, they may be able to retain many of their big customers and long-lasting customers, and that may be good enough for them. But they aren't going to gain new customers, or at the very least, they won't gain nearly as many new customers as they potentially could have.

Why force customers to pay for something in a newer version of your software, that they didn't have to pay for before in previous versions??? Did RA enhance and make that feature better, hence justifying making the feature a premium?? Nope. It was just to increase profits, nothing else. That's how RA rolls. Instead of offering great innovative products that the customer will love and buy, RA just raises prices, and charges a premium for everything. In a nutshell, that's their business model.

They lost us as a customer for all those reasons mentioned above and more. We moved away from RA seven years ago and haven't looked back.

Rising competition in the Industrial Automation sector

Innovator's Dilemma

There will always be competition and that's what drives innovation and pricing; good for the customer/consumer!

What is the platform/mfg that your company moved to?

 

[jstolaruk]

Rising competition in the Industrial Automation sector

Interesting read especially when it got to the sources; the author just read a bunch of news releases, mashed them up, and spit them out. There were some interesting things I've run into he would not have known just reading mfg's news releases. For instance, GM now specs AB plcs and Siemens HMIs (and VFDs too, at least they attempted). This cross use of mfgs would not have shown up in his sources. Another: Heller will let you choose Fanuc CNCs, not firmly offering Siemens.

 

[busarider29]

What is the platform/mfg that your company moved to?

the author just read a bunch of news releases, mashed them up, and spit them out.

I agree......on some of it. The article is a bit dated too. Regardless though, most everything there is valid today.

For instance, GM now specs AB plcs and Siemens HMIs (and VFDs too, at least they attempted).

And your point is? Defense of RA will go nowhere with me. I've worked with Rockwell products for 15 years (still do on occasion). In fact, I was brought up on Rockwell. For the most part, I know what they have and how it works and how it doesn't work. I've also worked with the aforementioned platform from across the pond for 7 years now. Likewise, I know what they too have and how it works and how it doesn't work (learn new stuff about their platform all the time though)

My take now?
Beckhoff >>>> Rockwell.
And its really not much of a contest. The flexibility, scalability, speed and performance just can't be matched by any 'black box' hardware PLC, whether it be RA, Siemens, Mitsubishi, etc.
This short thread from a week ago is just one of many examples I can show where the 'black box" hardware PLC just can't compete with the 'soft" PLC (ie...Beckhoff, etc...) There are many more examples I can show if you care to know.

 

[jstolaruk]

And your point is?

That the author didn't realize that some of the big buyers are not set on any particular platform. They are willing to mix them up.

I'm not a defender of any particular mfg, as long as it works. As a integrator, I personally prefer RA but I don't get in a argument with the customer - they are always right (even when they are wrong).

I don't like to short sight myself by discounting any mfg because typically they've been in business for long enough to bring products to market and that was to fill a need.

 

[jstolaruk]

And its really not much of a contest. The flexibility, scalability, speed and performance just can't be matched by any 'black box' hardware PLC, whether it be RA, Siemens, Mitsubishi, etc.
This short thread from a week ago is just one of many examples I can show where the 'black box" hardware PLC just can't compete with the 'soft" PLC (ie...Beckhoff, etc...) There are many more examples I can show if you care to know.

LOL, this reminds me of the period about 20 years ago when I was replacing a lot of "soft" PLCs with h/w PLCs because the computers would fail and couldn't be replaced. This was back when ISA motherboards were on the way out. I made some good money during that time on those projects.

 

[busarider29]

As a integrator, I personally prefer RA

Why??? My guess is its because that's what your most familiar with. Because it surely cannot be for performance, price, scalability, flexibility. I know it's not for those reasons, can't be.

this reminds me of the period about 20 years ago when I was replacing a lot of "soft" PLCs with h/w PLCs because the computers would fail and couldn't be replaced.

20 years ago.....
I was rolling with a new flip phone that had this cool new feature where they integrated a camera into the phone. Imagine that, a camera in the phone! It was great because you could take pictures with your phone and display them on the little screen on the phone!

Apple had this really cool product too, called an 'Ipod'. It was actually a portable HDD that could store up to 5000 songs on it!!! Bye-bye Walkman portable CD player! You had be careful carrying it around though because it was not a solid state drive, so a hard bump would make the song skip. It was a bit big and clunky too, but I still managed to get the thing in my front coat pocket.

Sarcasm aside, the point is a lot has changed in the past 20 years. Don't tell me about 20 years ago. The automation industry landscape is changing.

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