PLCMaster

Forget about any Data Blocks you ever had in S5 before the conversion as they'll end up being shoved into some part of the program you never called . The conversion from S5 to S7 is good with not so complex programs , but when using complex function blocks calling DB's , expect to end up in a world of ****. We use the Vipa Speed7 series and they absolutely KILL any Siemens hands down at half the cost ( sometimes a little more ). Their PID control is at minimum 3 times quicker than any S7 400 series cpu and scan times are quicker, no matter how bad your programming might be :) To top it off, they come with onboard ethernet port as well. Setting them up is easy with the right gsd files. They sit on a virtual profibus but everything else is the same as Siemens. I will never use Siemens again and swear by them.

Thankyou very much . These are exactly what we need. Cheers

Been playing with our 21axis machine ( Ultra3000s and Kinetix 6000 ) for the last 18months using Motion Axis control over a twin sercos card closed loop fibre ring. I love AB Motion control but it has problems. Any voltage fluctuations of any sort and the drives go into fault and they seem weak in regards to Estopping. 2 fried drive units and counting .The feedback capabilities are awesome but the cam profiling can be a headache with 3 or more axis' working together. The great thing is the intergration into RSLogix software.

Siemens S7 OB80 or time of day interrupt OB's come to mind and unless you truly understand Siemens , you'd be hard pressed finding these faults , as you can disable the error message in the buffers.

If you are looking to buy or replace S5 or S7 parts , forget Siemens and go straight to VIPA. As some of you probably well know , they sell the exact copy which slots straight into the S5 or S7 racks and are a 3rd to half the price difference . I recently had to ring Siemens regarding an S5 multi axis encoder card and repairing it . They wanted AUS $6500 for new or $3200 for repair , and wouldn't budge , as the say they no longer make this type of card. I bought the exact replacement card ( brand new ) through VIPA for $2700. Siemens have subsequently now lost all my business wether it be for an entire plc or I/O cards ( s5 or s7 ) as the Vipa units kill them hands down and are half the price , if not less. I'll settle for the minor detour of setting up a virtual profibus with the vipa units , and with a scantime in the microsecond range for the Speed7 series and an ethernet port to go , it makes the S7 400 look very ordinary indeed . To top it off , they use Step7 too. Thanks Siemens for outpricing yourself and making my decision so easy . You've just lost a minimum of over $100k ( if not more ) a year in sales from me alone.

Any decent programmer will tell you comments are what make a program easy to understand rather than symbols or tags. Once you begin to get into tag aliasing and multiple axis motion control, tag names become irrelivent and comments become the most important thing . I work on the ideal that anybody who has the ability to jump online with RSLogix5000 must be able to decipher the program and diagnose a fault within minutes. As long as you give your routines descriptive names for their given actions , comments are all you should need .