adccommunitymod (AutomationDirect) asked a question.
@shyam (Customer) **Note this conversion was moved from another thread.
shyam (Customer)
5 hours ago
I work for a machine builder where we use a lot of Rockwell, but only 25% of the time is that actually customer spec but rather our own choosing. I'm looking to learn a platform for machines going to plants with little to no automation and smaller budgets. I always assumed that the CLICK, Do-more, and Productivity series were garbage from listening to all the Rockwell snobs but after some initial reading they honestly don't look that bad. So my question is which of the three is most widely used by you guys, and which would you consider the most bang for your buck?
As a side here are the platforms I am currently familiar with:
Studio 5000, Micro800 (CCW), Omron (Sysmac Studio), and Yaskawa (MWIEC 3).
Edit: You guys have provided some really great feedback from your own experiences and definitely have me feeling less apprehensive about the platform. It’s sounds like pretty much a toss up depending on the application but I think I will start with the Productivity series, then CLICK, and then Do-more. Again, thanks for all the feedback!
@Coolhand (Customer) **Note this conversation moved from another thread.
Coolhand (Customer)
an hour ago
My two cents. I use click almost exclusively in our plant. I love using it to replace AB products. Don't listen to the rockwell people. The click is the best bang for your buck. I am currently working towards learning productivity. I will only use c-more HMIs even if i have to couple them with existing micrologix controllers but those are on the way out so you are forced to learn something new anyways. I suggest click and productivity, others may feel differently.
Hi @shyam (Customer)
The Productivity Series is a great place to start. Productivity Suite Software will do the entire range of this Tag-Based PLC lineup. P1000, P2000, P3000 - Modbus, and Ethernet IP are very easily implemented in this series.
https://accautomation.ca/series/productivity-1000-plc/
The Click has some additional communication enhancements - WiFi available - MQTT
The investment is similar to the P1000 controller.
https://accautomation.ca/series/click-plc/
The BRX Do-more is one of my favorites for IoT applications. HTTP, MQTT, etc.
https://accautomation.ca/series/brx-do-more-plc/
Note: These are all great controllers.
Regards,
Garry
I have not used Allen-Bradley in a long time, but from what I hear the Productivity series is closest to a modern Rockwell PLC programming environment.
Click for me just lacks way too many instructions. If I need to do something with a tiny PLC I will ALWAYS choose a P1000 over a Click simply for the instruction set. Cost is similar as well.
Ignore the Rockwell snobs. These PLC's can do 99% of the projects out there.
I just had a guy on a Facebook group tell me to only use a ADC plc's in a hobby environment. I asked why, and he said they'd fail in a high vibration, dirty enviroment. I started laughing and wrote that I have plc's from 1994 still running in our sawmill. I promise it's one of the most dirty and vibrating environments there is.
I asked the application he had fail. He never answered. I'm sure that he was a Rockwell snob that "heard" they are prone to failure.
I've had great luck with the DoMore's. The Productiivity 2000 wasn't out yet when I had several big projects come through or I may have used that.
One more benefit to not using AB is not paying the astronomical charge for software and support. They really hurt the bottom line of a smaller company.
AB just redid their pricing again now. As if it wasn't confusing enough, now certain instructions are feature are further broken out into add-on costs. Support fees were re-structured again too. It's easiest to just buy a toolkit a get everything, but that's a tough pill to swallow.
The only time I've faulted a Productivity controller is when I add a module that isn't physically there. I crashed Rockwell controllers daily when debugging (not in the plant). You'd think for the price they'd find a way to handle div by 0 and array out of range issues without a fault. But I guess it's better to require users to put LIM instructions everywhere.
I've also yet to have one fail.
Anything is better than CCW. Psuite has the closest 5k "feel". Nested UDT/UDS's, no AOI's or ISR's or SBR's though. Do-More really shines when it comes to program control, communication protocols and access to system tags/information. They also have UDT's and they'll be nested in the next version. It's janky to get used to IME, but so is Rockwell. One major annoyance to look out for is Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, and Ctrl+Z will not do what you expect them to, so just avoid it. Outside of it's quirks though, it has a huge instruction set and the ladder is one of the nicer ones to look at (compares don't extend the entire ladder) plus the Big Chiefs are on here and their own forum to respond to questions. Wont get that with Rockwell.
Click is very limited. Only useful for something very simple where a price point has to be met(and generally that requires multiple units because the price different of a P1K doesn't cover the programming hours you'll spend coercing the Click to do what you want), or to use a simple IoT device at a low cost.
"They also have UDT's and they'll be nested in the next version."
Just released.
"One major annoyance to look out for is Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, and Ctrl+Z will not do what you expect them to, so just avoid it."
Ctrl-Z, I'll grant.
Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V have reasonable behaviors at the rung level and individual instruction level, but doesn't allow copy and paste of highlighted areas within an edit matrix. I agree that it doesn't do as much as you hope, but certainly does enough that I wouldn't skip them.
In the notes I see it states they can only be nested one deep? Did I interpret this correctly?
There was a thread on here in the past year where discussions about those functions were carried out. I believe it's been mentioned that Ctrl+z would require substantial work, fair enough.
IME Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V can have erratic unexpected behavior outside of their already limited functionality, I believe some of the more DmD fluent members mentioned erratic behavior in that thread as well. I opened a project to attempt to replicate some of this. It appears one issue is that the paste action has substantial lag and once it finally does complete, it does so in the current cursor location (or a chime and no paste) and not in the location where the Ctrl+V command was issued. Of course in this video below I am deliberately moving the cursor around, but when fingers start moving and a lot of rungs or contacts need to be copied I run into issues.
https://youtu.be/ZhnwTIWAUgQ
Bottom line, I don't use DmD often enough to remember what Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V can and cannot do (perhaps there is a pop-up that explains this and I inadvertently ignored it :D). It's bit me in the past and a new user coming from a Rockwell environment is also likely to get bit and angered, so my opinion (just me, hate at will) is to leave Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V to the experienced DmD folks.
Yes, nesting is limited to one level.
I have never seen that copy/paste behavior. It may be that there are issues on slow or resource constrained PCs. I copy/paste frequently, and almost always on slower debug builds, and it always pastes where I expect it to. Not saying there are no issues, just haven't observed it.
Chime and no paste is likely that it isn't in edit mode.
And many of the prompts can be permanently turned off. Mine are.
Will more levels be added?
Here is a link to the last convo about it. It's buried in there as it got a bit derailed (like this topic is)
https://community.automationdirect.com/s/question/0D53u00003Qd2TGCAZ/how-to-reset-a-run-bit-after-programs-runs
I just tested this on three different PC's, including a brand new StinkPad w/ 32GB RAM and 11th gen i7-1185G7. I'm no CS so I won't pretend to imply any of that is relevant, I just know they run CAD, CAM and other PLC environments with ease. I'm not saying it's not just me, but DmD is the only application I experience these issues with.
In the previous convo @HOST_franji1 (HOST Engineering) asked if I could provide the program and I failed to do so. I can if needed, but in all three cases (one shown in another video below) I simply clicked new offline project, and selected the 18pt device it choses by default, created one contact and one math block. Navigation with keys before paste is complete will paste at the new location and create branches if it deems necessary. If you slow the video down you can watch the paste lag on the paste icon in the ribbon. Apparently in May I was also experiencing this with the mouse, I could not replicate that however that device has the most lag of the three tested.
https://youtu.be/xN2tONDFpcw
Did you watch the video? It was in edit mode the entire time. I believe the chime happens when cursor navigated to an invalid area (trying to paste a contact on top of an output).