Siemens should I be worried?

[rQx]

Part of my problem is I don't use Siemens enough to know where the shortcuts are. So finding anything for me is painful.

I use Rockwell stuff enough that I barely touch my mouse when entering rungs. I do almost everything via command line editing using mnemonics. If I had a good enough memory to remember tagnames I would hardly touch the mouse at all. So, granted, product familiarity is very important. But I still contend that a user coming to a platform cold will have an easier time devising a working system with almost any other plc development environment (including Simatic Manager) relative to Portal.

Keith

true that, portal is a one of a kind program ( so far).

I really like that everything is in one program, it makes it easy to use. Instead of connect tags accross diffrent programs I can just open my HMI part of the portal and choose tags from my program directly into my HMI project. Since I'm not that advanced and have never went to school learning how to program, this is a good feature.

I guess all program have pros and cons. Depending on how mush you work with it, you will either love the one or the other.

 

[cornbread]

I'm not a big fan Siemens. Could be like you I had one forced on me and was not too happy. We had AB as our standard, and all the software, spare parts, training.... to support that platform. Now here comes a S7-300 Siemens, we were able to pick up the programming quickly, but now I have extra software and licenses to maintain, having to train the shops, having to set up inventory of spare parts.

The above is just my peronal opinion, but I will say the S-7 performs very well. Hope your experience is better than mine. Good luck.

 

[(8{)} ( .)]

Don't try to learn Siemens on-the-fly. You'll keep hitting brick walls. Find yourself a course and read the manuals BEFORE you start to code. Step-7 is not intuitive in the way that RSLogix is.

Good Luck,

Yosi

 

[AdamG8GXP]

Well there is here if someone has experience with the parts you describe. Otherwise there is here:

http://www.automation.siemens.com/WW/forum/guests/Conferences.aspx

Thank you.

When Google took me there to few topics I had questions with nobody there used ladder logic and none of the answers made sense.
I will try it.

 

[JOLTRON]

The below link is specifically for TIA portal but a lot of the practices apply to Simatic Manager as well (Step 7) except for items referring to optimized datablocks. Might be a helpful read.

Programming guidelines for the S7-1200/1500

http://support.automation.siemens.com/WW/view/en/67582300

 

[ASF]

@AdamG8GXP

Siemens has the by far best support I have experienced in the PLC world. Maybe because I live in europe? If you are a member on the forum (free) you can issue a support case by mail and Siemens will answer in 24hrs, by mail or phone. And oh yea, all the support is open instead of closed like RA... The forum can be a bit hard to navigate though :/

This unfortunately is not the case everywhere - Siemens support in Australia leaves a LOT to be desired. Never used to have a problem, my local Siemens rep was an absolute whiz, knew it inside and out, always ready to help over the phone or even drop in and see you. Then he left. Turns out he was the only one in Australia who knew things in depth. They took almost a year to replace him, during which time they literally had nobody at all who could help you out on technical queries. You ended up trying to explain a technical problem to a receptionist and hoping they would eventually log a case with China to help you via email. Really helpful when you need a fast answer. And then when they finally replaced him, his replacement - well, let's just say by the time I've exhausted my own (relatively small) Siemens understanding, I've exhausted his as well. Not that it matters, because you can never get hold of him.

Anyway, sorry for the rant there, but just check out the support in your area, hopefully it's as good as rQx's

If it's not, well I guess you're still going to have to use Siemens, but at least you know what you're up against!

 

[Noli2]

@AdamG8GXP

Siemens has the by far best support I have experienced in the PLC world. Maybe because I live in europe? If you are a member on the forum (free) you can issue a support case by mail and Siemens will answer in 24hrs, by mail or phone. And oh yea, all the support is open instead of closed like RA... The forum can be a bit hard to navigate though :/

For me, Siemens has by far the worst support I ave experienced in the PLC world. I also live in Europe.
They took a week to react to my last question.
Thanks for the tip to register on the forum, I'll try that.

I also work with Omron, Lenze and Beckhoff, their support is very good! I have no experience with RA.

 

[SUW]

If you need some help with the programming, Siemens has some free application examples how to configure and programm the PLC and a drive.
Maybe there is something for you as a starter

The application examples are there www.siemens.com/sinamics-applications

 

[Donnchadh]

Hi

Check out Hans Berger books they are top class and they have really helped
Me with Siemens which I have grown to like. I will always pick ab first but have become used to s7 and even s5 over the last year or so

Donnchadh

 

[ASF]

For me, Siemens has by far the worst support I ave experienced in the PLC world. I also live in Europe.
They took a week to react to my last question.
Thanks for the tip to register on the forum, I'll try that.

I also work with Omron, Lenze and Beckhoff, their support is very good! I have no experience with RA.

Omron here is pretty woeful too! Oh, I mean they'll promise you the world when you go looking for them to recommend you parts or give you a quote, and their prices beat everybody else in town. But then when it comes to actually setting it up they're nowhere to be found

I guess the moral of the story is, check out the support in your area, obviously it can vary greatly! That'll soon tell you whether or not you need to worry :nodi:

 

[Peter Nachtwey]

Hi

Check out Hans Berger books they are top class
Donnchadh

They don't get into the nitty gritty. They cover too much that is obvious. I would cover what goes on during a CALL. A CALL instruction is really a macro of sorts and does a lot behind the scenes but the Berger book doesn't make that clear.

The S7 has some good points but there is no excuse for not being able to do indirect addressing in LAD.

 

[JRW]

The new processors have it now

 

[JesperMP]

Hej Karsten.

The issue for you is if you shall learn S7 "classic" or S7 TIA, or both.
You should really investigate what you will need at your location, as it makes a big difference.
I am guessing S7 classic since it is an S7-300 project, but it is not impossible that it is TIA since S7-300 can be programmed in both S7 classic and S7 TIA.

Anyway, I recommend you concentrate on LAD and SCL, since you have good IEC61131-3 knowledge.
Forget STL. You can do everything in SCL that you cannot do in LAD, so it is a good choice to combine these two languages (*).
STL is not going away, but it will become less and less important.

STL will be even less relevant in the new generation PLCs from Siemens (TIA only) since LAD is expandend with functionality that means you really dont have to resort to STL.

*: Some nerd will probably step in and claim that SCL is not as efficient as STL and it generates inefficient code. That is nonsene. It may be slightly less efficient than hand-optimised STL code, but this advantage is less important than the fact that it is much easier to make programming errors in STL, and it is much harder to maintain STL code.