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Shiner

Siemens platform comparison

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I have worked with the S7-200 series for a while, and have gotten deep into the TIA platform for the new 1200s. I am curious how hard a transition it is to the s7-300s, what the differences are. Is it similar to crossing from the micro family in AB to Control/Compactlogix? Thanks

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if you work with the S7-200 crap and the TIA crap, there should be little problem getting into the S7-300 crap.....obviously the outdated h/w, bizarre s/w and nearly no technical support (lots of technical disdain however) hasn't posed a problem for you so you should be fine..... as for comparing it to moving from a Micrologix to a CompactLogix is incorrect.....the s/w actually is tons better for the RSLogix5000 family of products as compared to the Micrologix (and light years from Step7)......lots of added features.......so you can do lots of programming that couldn't be done in RSLogix500. Now, Step7 will let you do lots of potentially higher level programming if you use SCL....but I stopped programming in assembler after I stopped using my Apple 2C!!! there is nothing better in any of the Siemens family.......its all equally poor...... whenever I hear that someone....anyone.....wants to use a Siemens its all I can do to keep myself from laughing hysterically bob
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S7-200 is not like a S7-1200. S7-1200 is much closer to S7-300. S7-200 had some seroius system faults (example, port are set default to 9.6kbit/s and programming adapter has minumum speed 19,2 etc etc..) but TIA Portal (once al service packs are implemented... in few years) would be a nice platform to work with. TIA Portal V12 is not stable yet (crashes, looses data etc) so I reccommend you to use V11 SP2 version. You have possibility to work with S7-300 there (you can not use S7-1500 in V11). Editors are all OK, networking works fine, but there is no simulation module in V11 (in V12 there it is).
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Shiner Sounds like you understand FC's FB's OB's etc You won't have any problem. Remember the old saying "opinions are like a--holes, everyone's got one" By the way SCL is not like assembler , SCL is structured text

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You forgot to add "in my opinion" If you can't respond to a simple request for information then please don't respond. It's all about personal preference, I have also worked a great deal with Control Logix and Siemens and my preference is Siemens, I don't on the other hand make infantile remarks on site's where people are asking for help.

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you are correct and I stand corrected.....bad day at the office.....I actually have two ongoing Siemens projects and one in proposal stage.....and I also have done lots of both AB and Siemens........if you like Siemens I would look up an IP252MC motion module.......if that doesn't make your toes curl up and your toenails fall off then nothing will....it was possibly the worst motion board ever actually sold by a company not operating in a basement...........Siemens had no, none, nada, zilch support for this thing, and had little idea how it worked in any case (at least in the US)......they were however happy to sell us 8 of these precious puppies.....and after the fact tell us they were no longer going to offer them for sale.....good reason.....they were pretty much crap. and I am possibly not laughing out load.....I am giggling softly however. opinion is what ice cream flavor tastes better.......crap on the other hand is always crap and can be determined as such by scientific reasoning......it makes little difference that someone, or many, say it tastes great......its still crap. bob
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I'm not surprised there was no support, the IP-252 is an ancient servo positioning module made for the S5 PLC's, the last manual (which for interest I just downloaded) was in 1998, the module itself probably originated in the 1980's. When it was first released it was probably leading edge. I can understand your anger with your local office selling you museum pieces.

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they sold us those museum pieces 20 years ago....or so.....and it was an S5 project......it was not a recent purchase.......to make matters worse......there was some internal feuding going on between the plc group and the servo or drives groups.....at least here in the states.....so because the module fit into a plc rack the plc group wanted to supply support......they had less than a clue......the motion group had what I would call a teensy tiny bit of support.....it didn't help matters that the module itself was really really really a poor implementation of a motion controller. (think no deceleration or acceleration parameters?) it was also the age where emails were just beginning so lots of information still came by fax......amazingly when I finally got to Holland and met with a local Siemens Engineer he asked me why I didn't request certain information.....I told him I asked for everything and anything pertaining to the modules....multiple times.....I can't specifically ask for a document I don't know exists sitting on someones desk. He did actually understand this. My past experience has been that the Siemens is completely overly complicated.....has outdated s/w (think 1950's)......incredibly arrogant tech support (most of the time)....its also real difficult to get a straight answer.....you can however get links to examples that don't make much sense to your question however....... Support in the states is quite poor (I don't need support in getting a button to work)....... Software is at best bizarre......and it hasn't really changed for what? 50 years? This is 2013 not 1913........so there is very little 'learning curve' when going from an S5 to an S7....they both have DB, OB, FC and FB. If you can read and program an S5 you should have little problem transferring to an S7...... What I normally find is that I will have this type of conversation and someone informs me that the Siemens is the one and only because it will have some strange function such as converting an integer into reversed flip flopped nibbles? when I ask why would anyone want to do this they would reply its a very important function and integral to all their programming. And of course that Allen Bradley doesn't support that all important function. For 99.9% or projects I would rate the AB products 10,000% better......and oh yes I know....the AB doesn't support Profibus either (natively)...... there are several very good technical reasons that the AB products are better....not simply because I use them.....think automatic type conversion for one....indexing and indirect indexing (yes you can do in SCL on the Siemens)......and much much better support by every means, phone, email, and online. So when someone has a choice and picks Siemens (unless the application forces it)...I scratch my head...and laugh....quietly bob
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Step 5 came from the 1980's and probably started development in the 1970's. At the time there was a debate on which operating system would become the industry standard, Siemens thought it would be CPM but the rest of the world chose DOS, so the early programming panels, the PG-765's etc were all CPM based. A windows version appeared quite late. Step 7 came out in the mid 1990's and the programming software was and still is very good. Now there is TIA portal, which does not include all the features available in Step 7 yet. When they changed from S5 to S7, there were some fundamental changes which included the dropping of PB's for FC's and integrating DB's into the FB's. The programming structure in a Siemens with the use of OB's FC's and FB's have always been 'in my opinion' what has put this PLC apart and superior to other PLC's, including Control Logix. The indexing in Siemens could be easier, I've never used SCL but have done plenty of it in STL, its not straight forward but easy once you get over the hurdle of understanding the structure of the pointers and any parameters. I have no idea what a reversed flip flop nibble is. In North America there has always been a resistance to Siemens, and comparisons are always made where Siemens is demonized because it is not the same as Control logix. I like Control logix but my preference is for Siemens, I can't make a argument for the new Siemens PLC's S7-1200 and S7-1500's as I've not used them yet. Siemens is the world's #1 brand after all, so they must be doing something right.

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thats a really silly answer.....that its the #1 brand......sort of like implying there are more Muslims in the world so that religion must be the best.......or there are more Chinese so they must be better (well better at copulating anyway)...... INTEL has more desktop pc's, however Motorola probably has a better architecture.... since the learning curve on a Siemens is drastically more.....the programming is cumbersome and really not very straightforward....and its more expensive for less.... not quite sure what the criteria would be to make a decision that its better? better at what? I would want to know what application actually was better served with a Siemens as opposed to an AB.....if the requirement was Profibus I agree its better......if the requirement was ease of actually writing code I would disagree and have to say AB.....since I do more coding than connecting to Profibus I would have to say the AB saves me time and money so I'm more competitive in my bidding... bob
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So I got a lot of Ford is better than Chevy is better than Dodge is better than Ford. What I was looking for was....how does the Dodge Charger compare to the Avenger and Challenger?......I understand you don't like them in general and that is fine. I have no control over what my customers specify however so your opinions will not change the fact that I have a project coming up utilizing that platform. Thanks to all for the answers.

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Bob Please post your company name and address. I want to make sure I never get a quote on a project from your company Thanks

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apologies for drifting off topic, I just thought it was not good to respond to a request for info with a bashing of a product due to personal grievances. Bob must have had a bad day, all I can think. In a response to you original question, I don't have a great deal of experience with S7-200, a lot with 300's and 400's. The S7-200 was originally developed by Texas Instruments, it was the basis for their next PLC at the time Siemens bought the company. Siemens then modified the design a bit to make it look a bit more like a S7-300. From my little experience with them I can say there is a vast difference between the S7-200 and the 300/400 range, including the software used to program them. As yet, I've only had a look at a TIA Portal 11, this was a limited time license I used just to see what's its like. Of the new PLC's it didn't include S7-1500, only the 1200, the 1500 is included in TIA Portal 12. I noticed a number of shortfalls in the S7-300 and S7-400 packages in the Portal programming package, features from Step 7 Manager that are not included. I hope these will be added later on I don't know. If I was doing a S7-300 or S7-400 job now, I would use Simatic Manager, I believe 5.5 or 5.6 is the latest, I wouldn't use Portal unless I was programming a 1200 or 1500 PLC.

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To answer your original question, the S7-1200 is supposed to replace the S7-200 for smaller applications. I have quoted using the S7-1200 several times over the past few years, but so far, all of the customers that wanted Siemens opted for the S7-300 upgrade for commonality of parts. Based on the introductory class, the S7-1200 was supposed to program like the S7-300/400 lines: FB,OB,FC,DB structure. The little bit of programming we did was more similar to the S7-300 than the S7-200, so I would expect going from the 1200 to the 300 would be fairly harmless. You already have the basics down. My take on the programming comparison would be the CompactLogix to the ControlLogix. Step 7 Basic vs. Step 7 Standard similar to Logix5000 Mini to Logix 5000 Standard. Not an exact fit, but I think a more apt comparison.

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