Automation direct

[tonypocono]

Hi everyone
my first posting.
I work at a relatively large plant,we have about 75 PLC`S in use.
A&B ,SIEMENS.BUT THE MARJORITY ARE AUTOMATION DIRECT\KOYO, THEY HAVE UNDERGONE SOME NAME CHANGES IN THE PAST.
I found them much easier to grasp as a novice several years ago.
They are always cheaper in price than most of the others,
Extremely reliable for the most part.
I/we still tend to use them for most of our applications here.
I noticed some venders\companies tend to shy away from them.
Is it only because they dont carry a name like siemens and a hefty price tag?
Can anyone tell me a good reason not to use them.
We are an extremely large company and have revenue over 250 million.

 

[Jiri Toman]

why not AUTOMATION direct

From your post I presume that you have not been in the industry for many years. A Company with sales below 500 Mil per year
is by definition a SMALL Company. Smaller Companies usually run a tight ship and will prefer cheaper products.
Automation direct is a marketing Company not a true technology Company. I have had limited exposure to their products,
but here is what I know:
Their tech support is nowhere near as good as AB's.
Their PLC's are OK for smaller applications, such as individual
machine control without a complicated process. For example
I would find it very difficult to control an Injection molding machine with their PLC.
If you need to have a plant wide integrated network that exchanges
lots of data in real time, your best bet is AB's ControlNet.
AB has leapfrogged everyone with this product. There simply isn't anything on the market to match it.
And then there is this issue of reliability. I don't consider
a PLC that has been running for a few years to be particularly reliable. I have done some machine control 23 years ago using
AB's controllers of that time, some of these machines are still functioning using the original PLC! Not only that, I can still buy spare parts for these PLC's!
Do you think that Automation Direct will support their PLC's
for next 20 years? I doubt it.

One more thing, usually the products that are real easy to learn are
rather simple and therefore have limited features and functionality.

 

[Terry Woods]

I can hardly wait for this.... Tom?

 

[Kim Gold]

We had a number of PLC's from Automation direct. They were quite reliable.
We have since replaced almost all of them with Allen Bradley. The reason was as Jiri described above. To share the data. We have all are PLC connected together on a network. We can access them from a single point, we can share information between PLC's and HMI's.

At one time we would have had a remote PLC controling some process, if there was a problem with the process we would flash a lintern lamp for example, to indicate a problem and usually had 1 contact going to an annunciator to alert the operator. All he would know is that there was a problem with that piece of equipment. He would have to then go to the equipment to see what the problem was. Now with the PLC's connected on a network, the operator can get a detailed alarm, such as "Pump 1 failed, Standby pump running". He can then call maintenance with a more detailed description of the problem, and all this without leaving the office.

 

[rsdoran]

HOW did this become a bash Automationdirect/Koyo products.To clear up a few statements

Automation direct is a marketing Company not a true technology Company. I have had limited exposure to their products,

Automationdirect.com, originally founded as PLCDirect in 1994, has quickly grown from a tiny PLC company to a well-recognized name in the industrial automation market. As the first industrial controls company to successfully use a direct sales catalog for PLC products, Automationdirect.com is now using its cyberspace superstore, in addition to its 800 number, to reach the next plateau in industrial control sales.

PLCDirect was established as a privately held Georgia corporation that is a subsidiary of Koyo Electronics (part of the multi-billion dollar Koyo Seiko group of companies). Koyo had designed and manufactured PLCs for some of the world's largest PLC companies, including General Electric, Texas Instruments, and Siemens. However, the future plans of these companies and Koyo were not compatible. Tim Hohmann, founder and company captain of PLCDirect, established the company in January 1994 as the first entity within the Koyo Seiko group to concentrate on the micro PLC market. At its inception, PLCDirect consisted of a handful of people working out of a tiny leased building. Its first catalog consisted of 200 pages featuring about 200 products. For the first five years the company focused on practical ways to deliver quality PLCs to customers at prices that were typically half of the traditional automation companies, including Allen-Bradley, GE Fanuc, and Siemens. Their competitive comparisons shown in advertisements and the catalog, combined with numerous Editor's Choice awards for innovative products, customer love letters, and their phenomenal sales growth, proved to tens of thousands of customers that PLCDirect was a solid choice for PLCs. In 1997, the company moved into a new facility, and completed an expansion in March 1998. In April 1999, the company changed its name to Automationdirect.com and launched its e-commerce site. The 2002 catalog has grown to over 1,300 pages featuring over 3,500 name brand and private label products.

As can be seen by going to their website this is KOYO marketing their own product.

but here is what I know:

Their tech support is nowhere near as good as AB's.

KEN nothing against you or AB overall in my statement. The biggest issue with AB is FINDING the support you need when you need it, support will always be an issue with any item/company BUT overall I think KOYO/Automationdirect has proven its support to those that do use them.

Koyo made earlier TI 305, GE Series One, Siemens 305 and still do..ie and older system that you can buy new parts for.

Networking??? Profibus, Modbus, Ethernet, DeviceNet? Any of this ring a bell?
Field I/O - Ethernet, Modbus, Devicenet
Operator Interfaces
Think & DO

Its hard to singly disseminate your statements because as you stated: I have limited exposure to their products...ie you have no idea what you are talking about.

With the market as it is now more companies will look at bottom line, AB will have its market, GE theirs, Siemens theirs, but Automationdirect will have theirs too.

With the way large corporations are screwing up recently AB could fold just as fast as anyone, actually they could anyway. Being part of a large corporation does not automatically mean security/longevity.

Now I will wait to see Tom's reply.

 

[Peter Nachtwey]

Re: why not AUTOMATION direct

For example
I would find it very difficult to control an Injection molding machine with their PLC.

Why?
What PLC can control an Injection molding machine without the aid of an hydraulic position/pressure module? There are hydraulic position/pressure controllers that interface to a DL250 and its H2-ECOM Ethernet module or Modbus serial very well. I would not hesitate to recommend a Koyo with the right hydraulic controller, because of the ease use and speed of its Ethernet interface. The Koyo would do just as well as the other big name PLCs unless huge amounts of memory were required.

 

[Eric Nelson]

Mr. Toman, as Ron stated, if you are not familiar with a company's products, how can you have an opinion???...

I have use AD's products since I first discovered them back in '95. To date, I have nothing but praise for them.

You statement:

"Their tech support is nowhere near as good as AB's." is based on what???? Have you ever called them????

Don't get me wrong, AB makes excellent products (I still use them frequently), but they are not the only guys out there!

One of our customers, a large (by your definition) cosmetic company, has changed their specifications on new equipment to list Koyo as their preferred brand of PLC (previously GE). Why?, because of all the reasons you say NOT to use Koyo.

You also mentioned:

"I would find it very difficult to control an Injection molding machine with their PLC."

Hmmmm, I worked for 15 years at a large (also by your definition) injection molding facility, and I would have no problem controlling an IMM with one. Or with an AB, GE, Siemens, etc. for that matter.

Tom, get in here!... NOW!...

-Eric

And another thing... Kim, you switched to AB because you couldn't network the Koyo stuff? Please explain THAT one...

 

[100010101]

"Their tech support is nowhere near as good as AB's"


Somebody is smoking dope!!

 

[Orn Jonsson]

Automation Direct !!!!

Well Jiri Toman,

You obviously don't ever try a new thing on the menu when you go out to eat. You do go outside? Don't you?

I have nothing but good things to say about AD. Prices are low. Functionality and support are very high.

I have called Automation Direct a few times for support and been very impressed by their commitment to customer satisfaction.

Their prices allow me to be competative and their stuff is shipped to you as soon as you your order.

23 years? well only time can tell on that one....

AB is good stuff, but they have priced themselves out of a lot of smaller to medium size automation projects.

Stick to your guns...... whatever

OJ

P.S. DL 250 makes an excellant motion contoller if you are a creative programmer.....

 

[Jiri Toman]

I like this discussion

Gentlemen, it looks like I have stirred things up a little.
Well at least it won't be boring.
Let me address some of your posts.

1. The issue of support.
A Company that markets 3500 products made by variety of vendors
is nothing more than a distributor. There is no way that they
can truly support all of these products. Simply impossible.
Allen Bradley has distributors, but in addition to them, they
also have their own specialists. If AB thought that a distributor
can do a good job providing support for their products then they
would not have a need for their own tech support!!
There were times when I had to talk to AB people who actually
designed some of their products. Can you do that with Koyo?
Oh, I forgot, everyone should speak Japanese.
Allen Bradley has a group called GPS (global technical
services). In some instances when I have to deal with some really
complicated issues which needed to be resolved in a minimal amount
of time, I have used these people.
I have always gotten good results.
I had a situation where I needed to replace an existing
collection of motors and drives with an upgraded system (again
bunch of drives working in unison) and I needed these to go to
Holland where a start up of these drives was needed.
Guess what, AB sent over a specialist who determined what we
needed,
then he contacted an AB branch in Holland and they had a
technician who got it all working.
Do you think that AD can do that?

2. Am I smoking dope?
NO.

3. Injection molding control with Koyo.

Peter,
The control of an Injection molding machine appears to be
simple to a casual observer. OPEN-CLOSE-SQEEZE-SQUIRT.
Most of the behind the scenes difficulty comes in trying to control
the process. Undoubtadly Koyo can do the ON/OFF control of the
machine. If you use third party controller to control the process,
it's the same as saying that Koyo can only do
about 10% of the required control.
However, I have also retrofitted molding machines which did not
require sophisticated process control. In that particular case
I could have used Koyo PLC.

Eric,
I don't know if your 15 years was spent just babysitting
the machines (do little re-design and troubleshooting)
or if in fact you have actually designed an Injection molding
machine control from the ground up.
There are IMM's that require very little in as far as
Inject end and Clamp end control.
For those you could use Koyo.
However, machines designed to run complex molds with small parts,
require separate Inject end and Clamp end controllers.
AB has one of each. Koyo has none!
AB modules have propriatary algorithms (ERC - expert response
compensation) to deal with the complexities of the process.
If you know any OEM who has actually used Koyo for IMM control,
let me know who it is. I doubt that you could find one.

4. The networking issue.
I must admit that I don't really know Koyo's networks.
I know that they use Ethernet, which they claim is
deterministic.
But I will ask you this, If you had a network of
25 nodes (I/O chassis) and 9 CPU's, could you transfer
500 Integers from CPU to CPU every 5 ms?
Could you set up the CPU's to read/write from/to
any I/O in any chassis on
the network in 5 ms?
I have done this with AB's ControlNet and it works!

Finally, I do not wish to bash AutomationDirect!
I have heard from different OEM's that the PLC's perform as
designed and that they are reliable. I am going to give it a try
on some simpler job and maybe I will warm up to it.
So far I have only been exposed to them based on other people's designs.

Thanks for your opinions

 

[Steve Bailey]

Tonypocono,

Your original question was "Can anyone tell me a good reason not to use them (Automation Direct)". I haven't heard a good reason in any of the responses posted here.

Jiri,

Allen Bradley doesn't make all of the products they put their name on. Does that qualify them for "nothing more than a distributor" status?

 

[Eric Nelson]

Re: I like this discussion

OK Jiri, you have redeemed yourself...

There were times when I had to talk to AB people who actually designed some of their products. Can you do that with Koyo?

For the most part, yes, believe it or not!

Allen Bradley has a group called GPS (global technical services). In some instances when I have to deal with some really complicated issues which needed to be resolved in a minimal amount of time, I have used these people. I have always gotten good results. I had a situation where I needed to replace an existing collection of motors and drives with an upgraded system (again bunch of drives working in unison) and I needed these to go to Holland where a start up of these drives was needed. Guess what, AB sent over a specialist who determined what we needed, then he contacted an AB branch in Holland and they had a technician who got it all working. Do you think that AD can do that?

I think they would sure TRY!

I don't know if your 15 years was spent just babysitting the machines (do little re-design and troubleshooting) or if in fact you have actually designed an Injection molding machine control from the ground up.

No, not IMM design, but significant program modifications to allow integration of the process with downstream equipment and remote process control and monitoring. Mainly with Netstal (PC-based), and Van Dorn (Siemens PLCs) IMMs (250-1500 ton), with a few Nissei and Cincinnatis thrown in for good measure!...

There are IMM's that require very little in as far as Inject end and Clamp end control.
For those you could use Koyo.
However, machines designed to run complex molds with small parts, require separate Inject end and Clamp end controllers. AB has one of each. Koyo has none!
AB modules have propriatary algorithms (ERC - expert response compensation) to deal with the complexities of the process. If you know any OEM who has actually used Koyo for IMM control, let me know who it is. I doubt that you could find one.

Yes, I would agree. But simply stating that

"I would find it very difficult to control an Injection molding machine with their PLC."

was just asking for an argument!

Finally, I do not wish to bash AutomationDirect!

Understood...

I have heard from different OEM's that the PLC's perform as designed and that they are reliable. I am going to give it a try on some simpler job and maybe I will warm up to it.

Please do!

beerchug

-Eric

 

[Peter Nachtwey]

Re: I like this discussion

3. Injection molding control with Koyo.

Peter,
The control of an Injection molding machine appears to be
simple to a casual observer. OPEN-CLOSE-SQEEZE-SQUIRT.
Most of the behind the scenes difficulty comes in trying to control
the process. Undoubtadly Koyo can do the ON/OFF control of the
machine. If you use third party controller to control the process,
it's the same as saying that Koyo can only do
about 10% of the required control.
However, I have also retrofitted molding machines which did not
require sophisticated process control. In that particular case
I could have used Koyo PLC.

Jiri, are you saying that the Control Logix can control the pressure loop at 1 millisecond increments? This speed may not be necessary if making plastic cups, but for more tricky/demanding applications it is best if the pressure loop can be updated every millisecond to catch the pressure transients. The hydraulic controller and Koyo PLC will cost about as much as the Control Logix and be able to outperform the control logix at that application because this is what the hydraulic position/pressure controller is designed to do.
I will agree that a Control Logix and hydraulic controller is better.

 

[Jiri Toman]

Injection molding module

Peter,

AB makes 1771-QDC which takes care of Inject and Clamp ends.

Description - The plastic molding module is a dedicated module that controls the inject, clamp, and eject phases of an injection molding machine. The module performs open- or closed-loop control and is adaptable to most hydraulic configurations. With the Allen-Bradley Expert Response CompensationTM (ERC) feature, the module automatically compensates for variation in the molding machine's hydraulic characteristics without user intervention. ERC is an adaptive learning capability which automatically compensates for process variations while providing closed-loop control in the plastics industry. Provides flexibility for: 1- thru 4-valve system; proportional or servo valves; selectable profiles per phase; trending of injection profile. The ample number of steps in each profile lets you accurately model the desired flow or motion to be performed during each molding task.

Update times are in microseconds.

A generic position or pressure controller cannot perform many of the
tasks that this module performs.

Steve,
You are correct, AB does not make all of their products.
Prime example of this would be Pico controller.
The Micrologix was originally made in Japan but designed by AB.
However AB - Rockwell is very good at synergizing other Companies (Reliance,Photoswitch) and non-AB products.
For example DataLiner displays were originally made by TCP, AB bought them out and within few years these products were improved and
absorbed into AB.
On the other hand AD is simply re-marketing!

This is my last post on this subject I think that we have milked it.
Thanks.

 

[Tom Jenkins]

Well, dagburn it, ya leave town fer a week and ya gits all kinds o' nonsense happenin'.

First off, I cain't think of any reason not to use Koyo products, and neither could Texas Instruments or General Electric! I don't know squat about IMMs, but if a general purpose PLC kin do it, then ADC kin do it. If it requires specialty modules, you is outta luck, mebbe, but then nobody kin do everything.

As fer as technical support goes, my local A-B distributir is great, but the factory tech support is way below the ADC in my experience in terms of accessibility and usefulness. I jist had an engineer out of state on a project we programmed fer another company and on panels built by a thord outfit. When there was a problem with remote I/O communications the factory response (onc't we got 'hold of them) was "try all these things until you find something what works, and if it don't work buy some more stuff from us." Our local distributor, whut had no financial involvement in the system, bailed us out when we subsequently got them involved. A-B coporate was useless.

And I has been involved in communications networks on bunches of PLC brands over the years, an' ADC is without a doubt the easiest to configure and git runnin' and as reliable as any of 'em, and more open than most, and has the biggest variety of commonly accessible protocols of any of 'em as standard or even without extra cost fer a bunch.

I has figgered out thet A-B holds part of it's current market share because there is a cnsiderable segment o' people whut figgers if it is more expensive it must be better. (Although my $45 Timex reads the same time as another fellers $2,000 Rolex!) These same fellers figger if it is too inexpensive it cain't be good, and there is some justification fer thet. Howsomever, I migrated to ADC when they wuz jist startin' out as PLCDirect cuz I knowed they wuz the same stuff thet had been brand labeled fer TI and GE. ADC has been able to sell good stuff fer less by takin one or two layers out o' the distribution chain and thereby minimizin' mark-ups. They give good tech support teh same way, by cuttin out layers and lettin' the end user talk directly to a expurt without three layers of lawyers and useless beuracracy to support!