What's up with the price of powerflex programming cable?

[strantor]

1203-USB

I can't find it for sale new so I assume it's no longer made? Used, folks want no less than $1k USD for it missing all the cables and in "untested" condition. Complete working kit is $2k USD (or more).

How much did it cost new? Is it all just scalping or were these actually so expensive to start?

Is there no way around it? Can I cobble together my own 1203-USB kit out of hacked-up ethernet and PS/2 cables and such, with a generic USB-RS232 converter?

How come nobody (looking at you, @geniusintraining) makes an alternative? Is that little "anacanda" box actually doing something special that is hard to replicate? Or is it just another USB>Serial converter but backed up by a team of Rockwell lawyers?

 

[Snyd1]

Rockwell still shows it active, as for the price...it's Allen Bradley. ProposalWorks, shows it retails at $569.64

 

[dmroeder]

I regularly write IP address parameters to PowerFlex 525's with a python, USB-RS485 adapter, AK-UO-RJ45-TB2P and the minimalmodbus library.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=rs485+to...=rs,electronics,123&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_2_2

https://www.radwell.com/en-US/Buy/ALLEN BRADLEY/ALLEN BRADLEY/AK-U0-RJ45-TB2P-EACH/

https://pypi.org/project/minimalmodbus/

I have something in the works that will allow created some simple text files that contain the parameters you want to write and write them using this method. If you happen to get the hardware and want to test it, PM me. It will eventually be open source.

 

[strantor]

Rockwell still shows it active, as for the price...it's Allen Bradley. ProposalWorks, shows it retails at $569.64

Interesting...This makes it even more mysterious why it's $2k+ on eBay. My local Rockwell peddler also shows it available for the same %569.64. I've sent a RFQ, will see how that goes.

Maybe I'll find that it's currently unavailable due to "component shortages."

 

[strantor]

I regularly write IP address parameters to PowerFlex 525's with a python, USB-RS485 adapter, AK-UO-RJ45-TB2P and the minimalmodbus library.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=rs485+to...=rs,electronics,123&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_2_2

https://www.radwell.com/en-US/Buy/ALLEN BRADLEY/ALLEN BRADLEY/AK-U0-RJ45-TB2P-EACH/

https://pypi.org/project/minimalmodbus/

I have something in the works that will allow created some simple text files that contain the parameters you want to write and write them using this method. If you happen to get the hardware and want to test it, PM me. It will eventually be open source.

So I take that as an indication that there's nothing special going on inside the box; at least not at a hardware level. Maybe it's acting as a translator between whatever lingo CC Workbench uses, and MODBUS? Have you tried using that hardware setup with CC Workbench instead of Python?


I would be ok with using Python. I've used it (pyModbus, pyModbusTCP) to communicate with other devices, but only when integrating devices with my own software. The only incentive I would have to use it as a replacement for existing programming software is if I didn't have the software, but in this case I do. I didn't pay for it, my employer did. I would not pay for it with my own money. I understand the motivation.

I have bookmarked your pylogix project. I think that will be very handy for an upcoming project. Thank you for sharing it.

 

[dmroeder]

So I take that as an indication that there's nothing special going on inside the box; at least not at a hardware level. Maybe it's acting as a translator between whatever lingo CC Workbench uses, and MODBUS? Have you tried using that hardware setup with CC Workbench instead of Python?


I would be ok with using Python. I've used it (pyModbus, pyModbusTCP) to communicate with other devices, but only when integrating devices with my own software. The only incentive I would have to use it as a replacement for existing programming software is if I didn't have the software, but in this case I do. I didn't pay for it, my employer did. I would not pay for it with my own money. I understand the motivation.

I have bookmarked your pylogix project. I think that will be very handy for an upcoming project. Thank you for sharing it.

I have it on a private repo right now. Currently, it just writes whatever parameters you enter into a text(s) file. After reading your post (plus a couple of others), I think I'm going to expand it to read parameters, edit them "on line", etc. That'll be longer term though.