SubaruGuy207

Allen Bradley Vs. Mitsubishi

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I work for an OEM in the USA that currently uses Allen Bradley Micrologix series PLCs and PanelView HMIs.  We are considering making a switch to Mitsubishi FX3 series PLCs and GT HMIs.  What advantages are there to using the Mitsubishi line of components over the AB line?  

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No annual renewal fees for licensing. Free technical support. Enough said.

Edited by Akahige

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Akahige is correct on that. I do tech/applications support at a Mitsubishi distributor, and the Mitsubishi support is pretty great, (no support contract either) Also, from what I hear, Mitsubishi hardware is much harder to damage than Allen Bradley. For example, I heard that at least one model of the Kinetix series of A.B. drives have much more fault/failure issues than a comparable Mitsubishi Drive.

This could be due to the fact that they don't make all their own stuff. Example: From what I hear, the Kinetix 350 drive was made by Lenze, and A.B. picked it up because the Lenze drive talked Ethernet IP faster or more efficiently than AB drives that were on the market. (We sell Lenze products is how I heard that) And Allen Bradley Encoders are just re-labeled SICK encoders (We sell SICK too)

Mitsubishi on the other hand, they don't even release a product until it has been tested for a year or two in Japan. So the products are very hard to break once they reach the US.

Just FYI, everything I've written was told to me by customers. (Who have used both AB and Mitsubishi) I typically do programming/Applications, so I only typically only see the Mitsubishi products when they are new, so I can't compare AB and Mitsubishi failure rates that well. (Hence why I rely on stories that customers tell me)

Edit: As someone who's currently going through BOOTP issues with an AB PLC, (I wont talk about it here, maybe on the AB forum later) I am very glad that Mitsubishi doesn't use the BOOTP utility. My experience with BOOTP is very hit and miss. I've never had these kind of communication setup issues with Mitsubishi, well, not yet at least. I'm probably a little biased, but I'm trying to take as much of my bias out as possible.

Like JRoss said below, since you're an OEM, the best decision could come down to who your customers prefer. (If both AB and Mitsu can do your application equally well)

Edited by GeraldTech
communication info + OEM statement
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I started out in the Mitsubishi world, and now do a lot of programming in the AB world, though I still do a fair amount with Mitsubishi. Here's my two cents:

Price - Mitsubishi is the clear winner here, especially for the higher-end PLC equipment. For lower end (Micrologix vs. FX), the price differential isn't that great, though it doesn't take much savings to make sense for an OEM, since you'll be buying more than a few.

Support - I actually think AB has better support, mostly because I make heavy use of their knowledgebase, which is well-maintained. The phone support is pretty good too, but frequently they are just looking up knowledgebase articles for me... The problem is, of course, the paywall, which sticks in many peoples craw. All that said, Mitsubishi does have decent support, and the fact that it's free is a bonus.

PLC Software - Since you are coming from RS Logix 500, you won't have any complaints about GX Works once you learn how to use it, it's a well-built software package, and the simulator integration is fantastic, and works perfectly with the HMI simulation. Best I've seen of all the brands I've dealt with. I would recommend learning how to use structured projects. I don't like the drag-and-drop style of programming since I'm used to keyboard entry from the previous version, but that won't necessarily hold you up. Structured projects will give you the ability to break your program into programming units, like routines in Logix.

PLC Hardware - The Micrologix is a good little PLC, and I still use them a lot. But the FX is a good little PLC too. Which is better is really dependent on the application, they each have their strengths. For example, the MLX 1400 with it's Ethernet and two (2!) serial ports does great with communications, while the FX series (all of them) are really easy to use for simple motion.

HMI - Not much to say here except that I'm not fond of FactoryTalk and PanelView Plus. They have a lot of capability, including features that are missing from other HMIs, but they're a pain to deal with. GT Works is much easier, and with the release of the 2000 series of HMIs, has a bunch of new features including visibility control (finally!). The HMI's themselves are quality components.

Reliability - I have heard stories about people opening 20 year old panels and finding Mitsubishi components they didn't know were there, which is a testament to the quality of the hardware. On the other hand, I regularly find 20 year old AB equipment in panels, working just fine thank you. I don't think there's enough data to claim a winner in this category. However, Mitsubishi can claim a win for backwards compatibility. This one is big for what I do. I had to work on a machine just last month with an original FX PLC (no 0,1,2, or 3!). At least 20 years old, possibly more. I was able to upload and go online using the same cable (SC09) and software (GX Works 2 running on Win7) that I use for the FX3G, which is a current product. That's just one example I have. For me to work on an AB SLC100, which is similar vintage, I have to use a special cable and a DOS-based programming software that I got from a colleague with more years experience than me.

Customer Expectations - Some eight years ago I helped another OEM switch from AB to Mitsubishi a number of years ago. They developed a really nice system with all sorts of features that performed very well for most of their customers. However, those were just the "economy" (i.e. low profit) line of products, and they still went after large projects (i.e. high profit) that, (a) required Allen Bradley and (b) usually had specific user requirements. They had never spent as much time developing their AB software, so those projects were often nightmares of resurrected code from older projects hacked together to meet the programmers interpretation of the user spec. So a couple of years ago, they brought me back in to take their Mitsubishi system and create an AB version of it as a base for these larger projects! My point is, make sure you understand what your customers will want and include that as part of the decision making process.

Edited by JRoss
Added section on reliability.
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Some nice balanced views there. But a big one has to be (as already said) same software for all plc's - no revision 7,8,9 etc or DOS Win 98 only.

I mentioned this on the other plc forum but I will state it again..........

Recently I went to a job with an old FX plc with a memory cartridge in. It wouldn't run. The battery was still alive even though it was older than 20 years.

I couldn't make it run but I could upload the program - and with that 20+ year old plc was all the comments.

 

I exchanged it for an FX3 - used the 'change plc type' in GX developer (with only warnings about the FX3 having a bigger memory) and away it went.

They wanted a few alterations too - it was a cinch because all the comments were there so I could go straight to the part that needed changing. 

 

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I agree with most of the comments so far as I do use both A-B and Mitsi. It makes me wonder if the views would be skewed to the other side of the aisle if this topic was also posted in the A-B forum.

 

Just a thought...

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Thanks everyone!  

plcdp - Good point.  I'll pose the same question over in the A-B group.

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I know this topic Is really old, but I want to share my personal expirience. I worked for a Rockwell's partner solutions company, so I had acces to a lot of customers and applications with Allen Bradlley PLCs, and now i'm developing in Mitsubishi Q series PLCs. You have to consider lot of stuff as JRoss explained, included the real needs for your customer and the added value you can offer as a programmer or a company. For small and specific applications, price will play an important role (small pokayokes, turn on and off a motor...) but nowadays technology is taking important steps and many other stuff is important to be aware.

For Example, traceability is one important thing on any aplication, communication and routing play a really important role in these days. For now, that im using a Q10 PLC series I discovered is really hard to develop a full solution, you have to pay for lot of more hardware and software, for example MES, windows server license, and othe software to be able to connect the OPC with the data base. Meanwhile Allen Bradley PLCs have a lot of compatibility with 3rd party software and open source products (as pycomm or pylogix, PTC OPCs, Ignition...).

For example, I had to develop a full solution for a small business with an Oven, total pricing with Allen Bradley hardware and software (Micro800 and Panel View 800 series) was under 10k dollars, becase I was able to buy a Ignition OPC or use an Open source software, meanwhile the cotization I received for Mitsubishi hardware based exceded 20k dollars, for the same solution, and we expected that our system with Allen bradley would be able to grow twice as its current size. i have to remark that this solution has covered routing (using Mikrotik routers), server, data bases, virtualization, web app, and control (where allen bradley PLC is used).

So, as you can see not everything is resumed to the PLC's hardware and software price, the full solution is what really matters when you have to choose or explain why one is or is not the best option.

Communication protocols should be considered as well, we are at the beggining of the IoT revolution, many protoccols as Modbus, Modbus RTU, and small modules must be considered, for example in my solution with micro850 I was able to find a modular remote IO (Novus brand) that included thermocuple Inputs and worked with Modbus TCP/IP, so I saved about 1k dollars to replace some Allen Bradley modules and save more than 2k if I had used Mitsubishi.

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Compare apples to apples.  You compare a Micro800 to a Q Series.  Should have ben FX5 to be equal.  Q Series is more on par with ControlLogix.

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Follow up:  The Mitsubishi  FX5U and GOT Simple won the battle. We have been shipping the system since 2018.

Our A-B rep was pushing the Micro850 and PanelView 800 7" to meet our specifications/price point. Mitsubishi was offering the FX5U and GOT Simple. We ended up choosing the FX5U over the comparable Micro800 PLC.  One of the primary reasons was the development environment. Mitsubishi uses the same software from top to bottom of the product line.   I would say our Mitsubishi combination is like programing a MicroLogix 1400 with RSLogix5000. The only thing I don't like is the basic Ladder Logic editor which looks and operates like it's from 30 years ago (and probably is based on their legacy support).  All our PLC programming is in Function Block and Structured text and nearly fills the 64000 step standard memory allotment.

 

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+1 for Fx5U+GOT Simple.

With SSCNETIII/H and CC-Link IEF Basic available, it untie my hands big time in my line of work...

If Mitsu add G-code support in IQ-F series, it will become small automation monster.

Edited by glavanov

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20 hours ago, SubaruGuy207 said:

The only thing I don't like is the basic Ladder Logic editor which looks and operates like it's from 30 years ago (and probably is based on their legacy support).

In my experience, this is an attribute of Japanese programming software. I believe the software developers cater to keyboard programming (as opposed to using a mouse). Although, most Japanese PLC manufacturers are very good at legacy support.

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