mfreundl

Productivity 2000

5 posts in this topic

Has anyone had the opportunity to work with Automation Direct's new "Productivity 2000" PLC? I have personally had the opportunity to use their "Click" PLCs which are, as advertised, very cheap, but effective. These little plcs are similar to Allen Bradley's micrologix line of processors, but definitely are not as well made. The software is free (a nice bonus) but definitely lack in features that you would get from the Rockwell folks. Still, for a simply job on a tight budget they work well. As for the new Productivity line, it looks (from a software side only) like many of the features you would find on the Contrologix and Compactlogix systems are now available. The user interface looks relatively clean and easy to use (Coming from an Allen Bradley background). So...any thoughts on the Productivity 2000?
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I just started a project using three of them. I would not say they are as advanced as CompactLogix, but are a big step above the Micrologix1400 we use for most jobs. The communications capacity is powerful. The software is a little too much like DirectSoft in some ways. My A/D PLC experience is quite limited and I have been working with A/B stuff for almost 20 years. So far, I have only written two small programs with about 20 rungs each. One is using MRX and MWX blocks to poll 5 Modbus nodes over the serial port and 4 of them are absent. The little unit seems to deal with the missing nodes just fine. I did manage to fill up the serial buffer by setting my polling delay to 0.1 seconds between messages and unplugging the serial port. When I plugged it back in and bumped my timer back up to 0.15 seconds, it recovered all by itself even though only one of the devices is present. I find the instruction set to be powerful, and the CPU speed seems very good. My peak scan time shows to be 0.2 miliseconds at this early stage. I could write a long list of things I'd change in the software, but it is not bad and the price is hard to beat. It would be nice to be able to toggle bits without having to use a Data View window. It would be nice if data view windows would allow address entry in the Modbus address column. It would be nice if I could edit the tag comment from the data view window. It would be nice if the data view window was not always "on top". It is awesome to be able to assign modbus addresses any which way you like. It is awesome to be able to pick and choose addresses in any order and about any data type in a single MRX or MWX (message) command. I like a lot of things about it. I don't like "columns". I have not wrapped my head around columns and why I need them at all, but I did manage to make a mess of a very simple ladder file by deleting all the extra ones and then adding a rung which ended up stretching all the existing rungs to beyond readable. I will eventually learn a "best practice" to deal with it, but it would be nice if the software handled them for me with minimal wasted space. It would be nice to be able to use arrays of tags and be able to comment each instance separately. I started out with arrays, then abandoned them when I found out that I can have only one address comment for the whole array. The built in display on the CPU and analog cards is very cool. It is very bright and you can easily make it display about anything. I have not powered up the analog cards yet, so they only display an error for missing power source, but I have done a lot of testing with the CPU display and I like it a lot. I'll add more later when I get back to that project. Edited by OkiePC

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Have done 1 project with the Productivity 2000. Will agree with OkiePCs comments.  Could use some improvements in the software.  The ability to use tags is great. The price(value) is great.  The software could be a little more "newbie" friendly, is easy once familiar.  But, I can't complain for the price. The main addition I would like to see(and would be willing to pay for) is a CD or hard bound instruction manual. The phone techs. are also very helpful for learning a new format. Will use again and recommend for anyone else to use. Edited by Sparky 870

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I am trying to use the P2000 as a replacement for our old compact logic plc’s. But our AB backup programs that were left for us is in ACD format I would like to find someone to open them and print a pdf file for me to use to rewrite the program into a P2000 system.

The problem I am running into In practice of conversion is the PID function.

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Try posting them in the Allen-Bradley forum and someone will create a PDF for each ACD.

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