Why do you pay for PLC programming software?

Z
As we see, this is a long and ongoing discussion, with no easy answers. I like the ideas that Wuollet has expressed about an open platform. In the PC world, Linux and other applications revolving around the linux platform have developed into some very nice stuff. I could see that working in the industrial arena, if it were TRULY open. Still the sad reality is that you do get what you pay for, and the lower cost packages do not offer as much nor are they as robust and user friendly as the high dollar packages. most problematic.

But- Essentially you get what you pay for.
 
A
You are right. Interesting that this is the policy of PLC's manufacturers. For example, the producer of PIC microcontrollers has completely different policy and provides the MPLAB software free of crarge. That soft allows to create programs and is also a simulation tool, i.e. you can look how the program works without a PIC controller.

PICs are very powerful tool and are used in automation as well, the only issue is assembly language is not as convenient to use as a ladder logic.

It's a shame that PLC producers do nat have as same policy as PICs manufacturer.
 
C
I'm not too sure about that. The best cross-platform C compiler in the world, bar none, is free. And it would be difficult to argue that the Linux that runs our new 6 million dollar press is worth nothing because it's free. And I would love to hear how I am losing out running Linux rather than Vista. It obviously serves all my needs and lets me do things that would be either prohibitively expensive or in many cases impossible with the spendy stuff. That is an absolute contradiction with the concept that you get what you pay for. You get what they want you to get when you pay for it. I feel totally under equipped when I sit down in front of Windows. It has nothing unless you pay for it and the equivalent to my free Linux installation would be at least tens of thousands of dollars in the shrinkwrap world. That is why I find that argument rather silly. It's all a matter of perspective. There are very few high buck applications that I find impressive and fewer still that I could justify spending _my_ hard earned bucks for. I could, quite comfortably, do all that I need, or want, to do with what I can get free. I will use what is provided, but the difference between the most expensive and the least expensive options for PLC programming, for example, makes it hard to rationally justify the high priced spread. My situation may well be different from yours, but it's not _that_ different. Supporting a dozen brands of PLCs does wonders for your perspective.

Regards

cww
 
C
Yes. Open DCS would be an excellent for today's hardware and software capabilities. But don't say it too loud, or someone will implement it with Visual Basic on Windows and we'll have to listen to people saying OpenDCS is crap for the next 20 years. The talent pool would be a problem with few OSS developers interested in DCS. But AutomationX gives a glimmer of how this should be eminently doable if the MS folks don't poison the well. The average desktop, programmed properly, is far more powerful than many successful DCS platforms. With bad PC software, an old VAX would be a better choice.

Regards

cww
 
W
I'm sure that an astonishing number of man hours are lost worldwide due to having the to rewrite and debug logic for so many different PLC brands. Machine builders and system integrators shoulder the cost of supporting so many PLC brands, but in the end we all pay for it.
 
D
First of all I do support dozens of PLC's.

Second, it is not my money.........and

Last, if there was only one PLC (openPLC), then everyone would be an expert (your theory) and you would make $1.26 per hour (on good days).

Maybe that is fine with you......................but once again
Curt.............my 7 or 8 or 10 years on this list and we keep having the same old arguements...........over and over.

In the meantime I've made a fortune letting someone else pay for the tools for me to use and I just keep solving their problems with the tools they buy me. Whether it is Seimens, Fanuc, AB, ABB, GE DeltaV, Provox, I/A or any of the other 100 systems I have touched. etc., it is the process knowledge that is worth money, knowing the paint sets (and they are all virtually the same when you get outside the box) just raises that bar (er um paycheck).

Companies need someone to hold responsible for their issues and Open has no someone, I still think (and have been correct for 10 years) that it will not catch on as people want to make money and get paid for their services. Maybe
year 11 will bring the big change (I doubt it).

I am a painter, the paint set isn't that important to
me......................It costs me zero and I actually enjoy learning different systems (sort of sick).

PS: We will be having this conversation again, and again, and again....................

Dave
 
C
I don't typically have to write code for all of them. Whenever I have a choice(new work), I use AB or AD to keep things sane. But, just to connect to and maintain the varieties we have requires an unbelievable array of spendy gadgets and weird connectors and the PC software mess is unbelievable. This accounts in part for my very dim view on the lack of standardization, besides the fact that it's just plain stupid.

Every vendor writes software as if it's offering is the only thing you will ever run on your machine and I don't think any two can use the same cable. Some brands require a different lashup to talk to each model. To look at the big picture, one could easily come to the conclusion this was all planned by lunatics or anarchists to destroy industry. But it's passed off as "innovation" and tolerated as "competitive". And some deluded individuals even praise and "celebrate the differences". Imagine how much would be accomplished if pipefitters or mechanics had to deal with such "competition" between vendors.

Regards
cww
 
J

Jeremy Pollard

And THAT was the promise of IEC-61131 .. the only hope is that everyone uses 3S software and keeps the file formats the same .. and then I woke up ....

Cheers from: Jeremy Pollard, CET The Caring Canuckian!
www[.]tsuonline.com

Control Design www[.]controldesignmag.com
Manufacturing Automation www[.]automationmag.com

3 Red Pine Court, RR# 2 Shanty Bay, Ontario L0L 2L0
705.739.7155 Cell # 705.725.3579
 
D
They do........................have you ever used an ODB scanner on a vehicle.

Every manufacturer implements the "standard" differently. And I do not think you can compare "pipefitting" to industrial automation. That would be like comparing a house to the international space station.

Dave
 
I agree that PLC software is often grossly overpriced- however the difference,for example, between RSlogix and DirectSoft is very similar to the difference between $3500 and $350. RSLogix is a far better, more user friendly package. I feel like I'm being robbed every time I buy something from AB, but the product (especially the software) is far superior to its cheaper brethren.
 
A
What's your time worth?

The price paid for good software is returned many times over if it saves hours of programming time. The extra time it takes to program with junky software more than makes up the difference in cost between them. Multiply that by multiple projects and the expensive software gets cheap real fast.

Not to pick on GE, but the Versapro and Cimplicity software suck compared to RSLogix. That goes for most of the other programming packages I used as well. Obviously, I haven't used them all, so the observation is a bit of a generalization, but in the long run I believe I more than make up the cost difference by reducing the programming time significantly.

There are a lot of 3rd-party software companies that make their living creating enhancements to existing software. They manage to sell it by demonstrating a ROI in labor savings. Note companies like ECT schematic development program that ran on top of an Autocad license. That's a double license whammy and it was still sold as cheaper (faster, error elimination, panel layouts, BOMs, etc.) than doing schematics in Autocad alone.

What's your blood pressure meds and mental health worth? I have purchased RS Logix out of my own pocket (no company re-imbursement) and don't regret it for a second. The frustration saved alone is worth it to me. But, different strokes for different folks. If you are happy with what you are using, then "don't worry...be happy." And have fun with whatever cheap (to buy - expensive to use) software you are using.

Another perspective.

Bruce A.
 
W
Basically the problem still exists but a practical solution is nowhere to be found. We really need the equivalent of the IBM PC and ANSI C for the PLC world.
 
I don't know ... I'm bad at mangling quotes, so I looked this one up.

Alfred North Whitehead [Introduction to Mathematics (1911); English mathematician & philosopher (1861 - 1947)] said, "Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them."

Its only my opinion, but I think we ought to be aiming for exactly that (Curt's pipefitting analogy) as industrial automation progresses.

I know what he's talking about regarding the multiplicity of cables. I'm up to about 40 *different* programming cables/comm adapters to support various PLCs, HMIs, motion controllers, and whatnot in our plant, and since some of them (for instance, standard DB-9/DB-9 "straight through", standard DB-9/DB-9 'null modem', Ethernet patch cables, etc.) are used for several different interfaces I'd guess we're supporting more than 50 types of gear.

It is interesting to examine the history of how this multiplicity came about, but as automation technology matures we need to be shooting for simplification. I'd be a very happy camper if all I needed to do was carry around, say, a single hunk of fiber optic cable, and know it would connect together all my X's to all my Y's without pain and anguish.
 
B
RSlogix is without a doubt the cream of the crop as far as programming packages for PLCs goes.

I can say that with some certainty having used a lot of them.

Some are really awful, others merely poor. Some like S5 are truely a challange to even use at all. Others hold a lot of promise (S7 and Concept come to mind) but never seemed to ever mature like they might have.
 
C
On Apr 28, 2007 7:48 pm, Bob Peterson wrote:
> RSlogix is without a doubt the cream of the crop as far as programming packages for PLCs goes. I can say that with some certainty having used a lot of them. Some are really awful, others merely poor. Some like S5 are truely a challange to even use at all. Others hold a lot of promise (S7 and Concept come to mind) but never seemed to ever mature like they might have.

CWW: Hi Bob,
S7 seems to me to be the logical extension of S5. These are a very different take on usability. They must make sense to someone. I am not that person.

On Apr 28, 2007 5:15 pm, Bruce Axtell wrote:
> What's your time worth?
>
> The price paid for good software is returned many times over if it saves
> hours of programming time. The extra time it takes to program with
> junky software more than makes up the difference in cost between them.
> Multiply that by multiple projects and the expensive software gets cheap real fast.

CWW: I don't know that everything other than RSL is junky, actually I find them all somewhat unstable, but most are productive enough once you get used to them. I think RSL is really popular with Windows fans but some others are at least as productive if you can type and are used to keyboard accelerators. I can't really say bad things about the DirectSoft stuff, it's pretty fast for me after a few projects. The
Mitsubishi stuff is still pretty clumsy for me partly, because they use different terms that I would expect.

Bruce Axtell: Not to pick on GE, but the Versapro and Cimplicity software suck compared to RSLogix. That goes for most of the other programming packages I used as well. Obviously, I haven't used them all, so the observation is a bit of a generalization, but in the long run I believe I more than make up the cost difference by reducing the programming time significantly.

CWW: I agree on the newer GE software. But I can really move with the old LogicMaster90 Many Windows fans dislike it, but once you know the keys, it goes pretty fast. I've kinda settled on a solution. I won't buy any GE hardware that won't work with LM90.

Bruce Axtell: There are a lot of 3rd-party software companies that make their living creating enhancements to existing software. They manage to sell it by demonstrating a ROI in labor savings. Note companies like ECT schematic development program that ran on top of an Autocad license. That's a double license whammy and it was still sold as cheaper (faster, error elimination, panel layouts, BOMs, etc.) than doing schematics in Autocad alone.

CWW: You can do much the same if you try to reuse elements and putz a little with AutoLisp. I don't use AutoCad anymore. It's pretty hard to justify unless you are selling equipment. I use XSchema or QCad on Linux and QCad works on Windows too. Schematics are really pretty simple CAD. The list and BOM tie in is nice if you have it. It wouldn't save me a lot of time these days.

Bruce Axtell: What's your blood pressure meds and mental health worth? I have purchased RS Logix out of my own pocket (no company re-imbursement) and don't regret it for a second. The frustration saved alone is worth it to me. But, different strokes for different folks. If you are happy with what you are using, then "don't worry...be happy." And have fun with whatever cheap (to buy - expensive to use) software you are using.

CWW: I have it, at the companies expense, and there is a stocking AB distributor nearby. So, I use it. If you have AB PLCs around, you really don't have any choice. But in my consulting business, I'd have to have a lot of work lined up before I'd buy it and pay the protection racket to keep it up. If someone absolutely demanded AB and I could make it a line item, that would be fine. But you have to really make some money with AB equipment to come out ahead. I would prefer that I make more money per job than RA. Bidding both ways, a lot of folks would
probably like the AD price better than the AB price and the end result would be the same as far as I have seen.

Regards
cww
 
C
There doesn't have to be only one PLC, I just would like to see them compete on who could make the _best_ PLC with a particular world interface rather than the much simpler task of making the _only_ PLC with a particular interface. We simply don't need any more functionally identical diversity.

Regards
cww
 
J

Jeremy Pollard

True enuff Bill .. IEC was supposed to be the Ansi C.. but the hardware guys wont let it happen. Crater tried with the Puffin Project .. at the end of the day people just want stuff that works..

Until the rest of the world catches up with legacy pensions, and high wages, and the 1/4 to 1/4 profit mentality, we'll be in tough.

Cheers from: Jeremy Pollard, CET The Caring Canuckian! www[.]tsuonline.com

Control Design www[.]controldesignmag.com
Manufacturing Automation www[.]automationmag.com

3 Red Pine Court, RR# 2 Shanty Bay, Ontario L0L 2L0
705.739.7155 Cell # 705.725.3579
 
K
I think Dave Ferguson has a pretty good viewpoint on this subject. Sure everyone would like an open standard, everyone would like the PLC manufacturers to be better and more open with the ability to use a "world interface". We have to remember though that companies like Modicon, AB, Siemens, et al, and their expensive R&D is what has enabled us, thus far, to work in the automation field and make fairly decent money while doing so.

Without their innovations we might still be wiring lots of relays. This discussion isn't going away- It's probably a healthy thing. But one has to ponder "Is it changing anything?" And so, let the discussion continue......
 
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