Rockwell Rslogix 5000 Firmware/Software Revisions

[Ones_Zeros]

Hey,
Can you guys help explain this to me, I have always seem to get this confused.

The question is whats the difference between the Rslogix 5000 software version vs the firmware version of the PLC controller?

Say for example when you get a new Compactlogix controller new out of the box it will have a low revision number installed on it and if I have a PLC program the has a software version of 16 on it.

I would have to install at least firmware version 16 on the new PLC controller....right? Do they have to match?

Could the PLC controller firmware revision ever be greater than the PLC software program & open correctly?

As you can see I'm confused on this process

Can someone be so kind to explain this to me


Thanks,

 

[JDCROCKETT724]

The PLC Firmware Version and the RSLogix version must match. This is why the PLC is shipped with either nothing or a very low firmware. This allows you to use whichever version of RSLogix you have on that PLC. If you are looking for a recommendation I would shoot for version 21 or better. I believe it was version 21 that allows you to download all the tag and rung comments down to the PLC. This way, if you ever had to upload the project, you will have the complete project without having a source file. Keep in mind too that as new AB hardware comes out that it is only compatible with newer versions.

 

[p_logix]

Hey,
Can you guys help explain this to me, I have always seem to get this confused.

The question is whats the difference between the Rslogix 5000 software version vs the firmware version of the PLC controller?

Say for example when you get a new Compactlogix controller new out of the box it will have a low revision number installed on it and if I have a PLC program the has a software version of 16 on it.

I would have to install at least firmware version 16 on the new PLC controller....right? Do they have to match?

Could the PLC controller firmware revision ever be greater than the PLC software program & open correctly?

As you can see I'm confused on this process

Can someone be so kind to explain this to me


Thanks,

The software must match the controllers major revision. Any modern controllogix processors out of the box must be flashed. For example you have Studio5000 Version 24 software installed on your pc; you must download the firmware from Rockwell and use a program called control flash.

The major revisions must match not minor.

For redundant processors such as a 1756-L1 , 1756-EN2T, 1757-RM2 All processor modules must be flashed to specific major and minor revisions only. For example only firmware version 20 and 24 are the highest that support redundancy at this time. In this case the minor revision is very important for redundancy to work (20.0056)

But any Rslogix5000V20 or Studio5000 V24 would work to program the processor.