grasshopper

PLC5 to RS Logix5000 advice needed

17 posts in this topic

Hi.

First of all, I haven't worked with Bradley PLCs for 7/8 years and when I have in the past Ive only used RS Logix500.

I have recently changed jobs and have 'inherited' a minefield of very old Allen Bradley PLCs and software.

Basically, I want to replace the 'engineering station' that is connected to the site PLC network via DH+ and is running PLC5 software through DOS.

I have been given a laptop with RS logix5000 on, so I plan to convert the 'projects' for all processors to files that can be opened in logix5000 and then I can get another licence and upgrade the engineering station to a more user friendly version.

To be able to use the translation tool, I need to create a .PC5 file from the project on the old engineering station. I have tried saving one of the processors code to a floppy disk, but it creates multiple files with .$xx extensions (or similar).

Is it possible to create the .PC5 file directly from the PLC5 program on the engineering station?

Is there another way of doing it that Im missing?

 

Obviously, I am up against a myriad of issues:

1. The engineering station only has floppy drive.

2. This PC Im typing at now doesnt have the Logix5000 software on it.

3. The laptop that has the Logix5000 has no internet connectivity, it does however have a virtual PC running XP and SLC500.

 

Any help on how to proceed is much appreciated, I feel like Im in a race against time because if the engineering station dies then we have no way to connect to the PLC network and interrogate the logic or IO.....

 

Thanks in advance 

 

Mike

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Are you planning to replace all of the PLC 5 hardware (processors and IO cards)? If not, converting the software so that you can open it in Logix 5000 isn’t going to do anything for you (except make a god awful ungainly program that’ll be hard to follow). 

Edited by Michael Lloyd

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I've done a few migrations from PLC-5 to Logix 5000.  A couple of them were pretty small machines with only about 50-70 rungs of pretty simple code so transcription was simple and easy. One was a much bigger system, though, with multiple chassis on an RIO network. It was also a very old system that had evolved a lot, so there was a lot of defunct code that had to be removed and several of the chassis were being removed with the remaining ones being replaced.

For all of my migrations, I've simply transcribed the code manually from RSLogix 5 to RSLogix (or, later, Studio) 5000. The smaller systems were a couple hours of work. The larger one was a few days to a week but none of them were particularly difficult once I got a rhythm going.

I've heard horror stories of the results of the migration tool, so I avoided using it on our migrations. From what I've heard, I would probably have spent almost as much time correcting and debugging the migrated code as I spent transcribing it.

It looks like you're using the older DOS software for the PLC-5s, which I've never used. I would be strongly tempted to just transcribe the code manually, either from a current printout or by having the software or PCs open side-by-side.

Like Michael said, though, transcribing/migrating/etc. the code will be of no use to you unless you also replace the PLC-5 hardware. If you do that, you may also need to upgrade your copy of 5000. What versions do you have installed? You can see that by looking at the splash screen as RSLogix 5000 opens or by going to Help -> About -> More Info. If it's an older version, you may have a hard time finding new hardware to work with it.

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If the intent is to "maintain" the existing systems, what you need to do is build your Engineering Station with all the softwares, RSLogix 5, 500, 500, Studio 5000, PanelBuilder32, FactoryTalk Studio ME (maybe SE also), RSLinx, RSNetworks for DeviceNet, ControlNet, Ethernet, etc..

At that point you could migrate over the RSLinx configuration and possibly modify some of the drivers to connect to existing systems.

Most of us here are also large proponents of VMMware Workstation with various images of differnt OSs to talk to various vendor platforms.

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I read and replied on my phone so I probably didn't do the best with understanding the scope of the OP's problem. Floppy drives? DOS? Holy vintage computing Batman!

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Still better than PLC=2's!

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Just now, Armadillo852 said:

Still better than PLC=2's!

Or Siemens S5 (I actually liked those but it's been a while)

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11 minutes ago, Armadillo852 said:

Still better than PLC=2's!

We actually have about half a dozen of those still running. Unfortunately, they're very bullet-proof. As long as you don't have to change anything or communicate...

 

10 minutes ago, Michael Lloyd said:

Or Siemens S5 (I actually liked those but it's been a while)

I've had to use a couple of them years ago. They needed a special laptop dual-booting to WIndows NT to work. And getting online only worked very intermittently. I was glad to upgrade them to MIcroLogix PLCs.

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Thanks all for you replies.

 

pcmccartney1 - Yes, the main intention is to try and make the 'engineering station' easier to use for the shift electricians and more user friendly than using the dos system that only uses F keys.

As I said earlier, my Allen Bradley experience has been with Logix500 and this has always been adequate for minor program changes and bit forcing etc which is the only thing that day to day, month to month we will use it for other than IO fault finding.

Your suggestion of having the engineering station with all the software versions sounds spot on tbh but I can imagine setting it up with licences etc will cost thousands of pounds. I think that this will be a sure fire way that the costs will never get approved (and possibly historically why it was never done by my predecessor).

 

Joe E - I understand what you mean about manually transcribing the code.

 

It seems that I (wrongly) assumed that having the code in Logix5000 would still allow connection to the old hardware (field racks and processors) via a DH+ card in the new PC, it would just make the reading and navigation of the code much more user friendly.

 

Obviously this has a low priority rating in regards to cost with the people who hold the purse strings, but I am trying to avoid us getting into the position where the only PC (engineering station) dies and then we have no access to the code or indeed the backups (which I now have on floppy disks!!)

 

I just want to get the point where I have a PC (that's not 30 years old) with a user friendly front end that I can back up after modifications easily.

 

The reason that I am looking at Logix5000 is that I have it on the laptop so I know I wont have to factor in that cost.... 

 

As Im sure you have all realised by now, this is my first foray into the program/operating system/networking side of PLCs. In my experience there has always been a device (laptop/PC) that has used windows based software (Logix500) to interrogate and modify projects.

 

Again, thanks for all your help, it seems like I need to think about other options than just simply relying on using logix5000 just because I already have it...…..

 

 

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Just now, Joe E. said:

We actually have about half a dozen of those still running. Unfortunately, they're very bullet-proof. As long as you don't have to change anything or communicate...

 

I've had to use a couple of them years ago. They needed a special laptop dual-booting to WIndows NT to work. And getting online only worked very intermittently. I was glad to upgrade them to MIcroLogix PLCs.

I used some Windows based software from these guys: http://www.fast-soft.com/page.php?21&gclid=CjwKCAjwtuLrBRAlEiwAPVcZBjrqoOEZyeIBfTwEFTRy_OKEoiW9mBQJS9Hpz0oGZp5ts8o-VbOuLBoCOPsQAvD_BwE

At the time we were doing a lot of work with the Siemens TI-505 and Siemens S7 PLC's and someone in corporate specified "Siemens PLC" for a water treating package. We used Fast-Soft Softworks for the TI-505. The vendor supplied an S5. It was an interesting little box. The logic was literally a mix of ladder and statement list. They had to use STL commands (that coexisted in the rung structure) because there was no ladder for that function (and sometimes I think they were just showing off :) ) I initially thought that the Fast-Soft software for the S5 would look the same as the TI-505 but that didn't happen lol

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I'm pretty sure you can get a Windows version of PLC 5 software. That and a new computer is probably your cheapest and safest option. I have a coworker that was primarily a GE guy (urp) when we hired him but he was able to make changes and link our HMI software (ClearSCADA) to it with minimal issues. PLC5's aren't bad. It's just that parts are getting hard to come by and compared to the "new" IEC programming software and PLC's, they aren't as functional. They were quite the hot rod in their time. Kind of like the Square D box. You could talk that thing into doing just about anything...

I've never programmed PLC5. I've only replaced them due to obsolescence. We have a lot of them where I'm working now and we have (tons of) spare cards, processors, etc. We also have people that can get in and do the work you described (force bits, troubleshoot) so I doubt I'll see a conversion done here.

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Just now, Michael Lloyd said:

I'm pretty sure you can get a Windows version of PLC 5 software. That and a new computer is probably your cheapest and safest option. I have a coworker that was primarily a GE guy (urp) when we hired him but he was able to make changes and link our HMI software (ClearSCADA) to it with minimal issues. PLC5's aren't bad. It's just that parts are getting hard to come by and compared to the "new" IEC programming software and PLC's, they aren't as functional. They were quite the hot rod in their time. Kind of like the Square D box. You could talk that thing into doing just about anything...

I've never programmed PLC5. I've only replaced them due to obsolescence. We have a lot of them where I'm working now and we have (tons of) spare cards, processors, etc. We also have people that can get in and do the work you described (force bits, troubleshoot) so I doubt I'll see a conversion done here.

I honestly cant see a conversion done here, simply for the cost implications and the view of 'if it aint broke, don't fix it'. I am fully aware that if it does break tho, we are in a mess and we will have 200 operators stood around doing nothing!!

 

I honestly never even considered a windows version of PLC5 - this could be an avenue to investigate as I cant see it being out of the realms of possibility expensive...

 

Thanks

 

Mike

 

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That's where we are with our PLC 5's. They work, we have parts, we have software, so leave them alone :)

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If you're comfortable with RSLogix 500, transitioning to RSLogix 5 will not be a big deal at all. They look and function almost identically. The biggest complication I've found is with the I/O addressing since the rack can be configured for multiple addressing schemes and the processor doesn't care what's in each slot. The I/O table is fully populated with registers for all of the I/O that the CPU can handle, regardless of what physically exists.

Be prepared for major sticker shock, however, if you need to buy a license for RSLogix 5. In typical AB fashion, they're pricing it to force people to stop using it. List price is about $11,000 per seat.

 

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Just now, Michael Lloyd said:

That's where we are with our PLC 5's. They work, we have parts, we have software, so leave them alone :)

Our PLC-5s are on the upgrade list, but at the bottom behind the PLC-2s and SLC100/150s.

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Just now, Joe E. said:

If you're comfortable with RSLogix 500, transitioning to RSLogix 5 will not be a big deal at all. They look and function almost identically. The biggest complication I've found is with the I/O addressing since the rack can be configured for multiple addressing schemes and the processor doesn't care what's in each slot. The I/O table is fully populated with registers for all of the I/O that the CPU can handle, regardless of what physically exists.

Be prepared for major sticker shock, however, if you need to buy a license for RSLogix 5. In typical AB fashion, they're pricing it to force people to stop using it. List price is about $11,000 per seat.

 

Oh Christ!!!!!!!!

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If you are a large user of and buy a decent amount of equipment, your distributor can get some special discounting for the "Toolkit".  Sweeten the pot by talking about future budgets for upgrade or migration of legacy systems to more modern platforms.

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