ABB AC500 PLC

M

Thread Starter

Mohamad Ashour

Hey Guys,

Does anyone have experience with the ABB AC500 PLC? I want to know how it compares to the more popular Allen Bradley ControlLogix PLCs or Siemens S7-400H Redundant PLCs in terms of reliability, maintenance, programming and ease of use. I am asking this because the ABB AC500 is cheaper by almost $28,000 than A-B ControlLogix & $18,000 than Siemens S7-400H for the system i am planning to use (61 DI, 41 DO, 4 AI, redundant controllers). are A-B & Siemens PLCs worth that extra money?

Thanks,

Mohamad Ashour, EIT, LEED Green Associate
Instrument Specialist
 
S
I've used it, it's a good PLC. It programs using the CoDeSys system, so if you've used it with other controllers, this will feel very similar. Maybe a little less polished environment than AB or Siemens, but for $28K, polish the thing yourself!
 
V

Valmir Trindade

I used to work with AC500. In fact it´s a reliable PLC and faster than any AB and Siemens controllers. But, AC500 just have "warm stand by" redundancy (using CS31 as network). AB and Siemens have "hot stand by" redundancies. Besides, there´s not I/O modules for AC500 with "hot swap". If your automation systems doesn't need to have these hardware characteristics, so you can use AC500 because it´s reliable, easy to programming and use. If you need "hot stand by" redundancy and I/O modules with "hot swap" I recommend to use the AC800 M controller by ABB. Its hardware is awesome, powerful and more reliable than the concurrents that you mentioned.

Thanks,
Valmir Trindade
 
Top