# What PLCs do you work with?



## GatorIE (Mar 22, 2020)

In a lot of cases, the customer has a standard manufacturer that they prefer to use, and we must just accommodate that. What I've found so far is:

Honda corporate plants: Mitsubishi MELSEC iQ-R, or the rare AB ControlLogix.
Honda tier-one suppliers: Mitsubishi MELSEC iQ-R, Omron NX series, Keyence vision systems
American steel production facilities: AB Compact/ControlLogix (most common), Siemens SIMATIC S7, or GE 90-70 series
Other US production facilities: AB Compact/ControlLogix or, in some cases, SLC 500.

These are just observations I've made based on the machines I've wired for numerous different customers. It's often a highly regional situation, but I'd say by far the AB kit is most common across the board. I don't think I've ever seen an A-D PLC in a machine I've worked on, but they could be commonplace in your region.


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## gpop (May 14, 2018)

Allen Bradley and wonderware is the main stuff in my area.


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## Instrumentation (Mar 11, 2018)

GatorIE said:


> I don't think I've ever seen an A-D PLC in a machine I've worked on, but they could be commonplace in your region.



I think it's more of an industry thing than anything. I saw AD in small industrial plants and small 2-3MW power plants in different states and I saw AB in small lumber mills and large utility power plants. I should note that Caterpillar generators all seem to have AB in them.


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## varmit (Apr 19, 2009)

AB seems to be the most common for most sizable facilities. Automation Direct is common in small plants or rebuilt machines. (I sort of like the AD Click for small basic stuff.) Omron is fairly common on some OEM machines.


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## Jlarson (Jun 28, 2009)

You name it we've dealt with it at least a hand full of times over the years working on utility systems, sometimes multiple brands mashed together trying to function. 



AB, AD, and IDEC are our main for new work.


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## micromind (Aug 11, 2007)

The last few panels I've built have had AB 1756. They also had the remote terminal blocks.....a serious timesaver........


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## glen1971 (Oct 10, 2012)

Allen Bradley ControlLogix, PLC 5, SLC's, ripped out a good handful of PLC 2's. Quite a few Modicons, Schenieders, Horner, and a couple of Siemens ones. I think it depends on what one works on the most, as to which is preferred and which they are the most familiar with. Personally I've liked the Horner and ControlLogix the most. Both very easy to work on, and seem user friendly. 

As for troubleshooting, I'll sing the high tune of documentation, whether it be the the wiring drawings, or programming notes, on the "why a rung does something".


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## just the cowboy (Sep 4, 2013)

I have programmed over 20 different PLC types over the years, cost is the main issue.
Allen Bradley is the most common in large manufactures in the US, and is top of the line.

AD productivity line is a real nice *lower cost product*, don't confuse with cheap they are pretty good controls.

It all comes down to what a company can spend, if profit is high AB. If profit is low AD, payback time is the deal breaker.

If you learn one the other is not much different both are tag based, with program blocks to use.

Cowboy


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## JRaef (Mar 23, 2009)

What brand I use is generally dictated by who I am employed by. But for a few years I had my own System Integrator business, so I used whatever the customer had or wanted, I took no position on their decisions (unless they were being REALLY stupid...). So I ended up on projects with A-B (mostly), Square D SyMax (before they became Schneider), GE, Modicon, Siemens, Texas Instruments (before they became Siemens), Mitsubishi, Omron, Koyo (who became Automation Direct) even a Cutler Hammer PLC back when they dabbled in it briefly (it was made by Panasonic). They all worked but they all had failures of one sort or another, nobody makes a "perfect" PLC. 

By far A-B was the most common, they own something like 58% of the market in North America. Knowing A-B PLCs bought me a lot of projects, but for the rest of them I simply had to not say no, because when people had already made their decision, I didn't want to lose the job just because I had never encountered that brand before. Once you know how they work, it's fairly easy to adapt.

The one exception I found was Siemens, but only in this way. With Siemens, you MUST first carefully PLAN OUT your entire system, BEFORE you start programming anything. It's a little more tedious for someone not used to it, but to the Germans, who like everything orderly and straightforward, it avoids any kind of chaos (to their thinking). With A-B, Modicon, GE and many others you can do it that way, or you can start writing your code first, then adapt it to whatever your I/O structure ends up being. I learned that way first, so it was difficult for me to adapt to the Siemens way when I went to work for them. Not impossible, just different in a way I was not used to (and wouldn't want to go back to..)


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## jbl (Mar 24, 2017)

Unitronics only


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## Wardenclyffe (Jan 11, 2019)

Old and new AB,...


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## oliquir (Jan 13, 2011)

Worked with AD, AB, omron, teco, unitronics, horner, ge, and some others. ive still have some 1990's koyo plc still working 24/24 in outside enclosure (-30C to 30C) without any problem, failure rates is about the same in every brand even if cost 5x times more than AD. Weakest point of AD are their analog IO that are not very reliable in the 205 series (lot of failures on different machines)
Unitronics have cheap IO that got fried very easily, so i don't use them anymore
Ive tried Siemens and i will never use it i don't like how they program their stuff, too complicated to do a simple task, i refuse every job that uses a siemens plc...


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## JRaef (Mar 23, 2009)

Another fun fact for the youngsters: The Koyo PLCs were originally brand labeled to A-B as the SLC-100 and SLC 150, to GE as the GEM 80, and to Texas Instruments as the TI 305 and that was the only way to buy them in North America in the late 80s. When all of those partners discontinued those product lines in favor of their own, Koyo was left with no outlet for North America, so they launched PLC Direct to be able to continue selling them. PLC Direct later changed their name to Automation Direct when they started adding other products to sell besides the Koyo PLCs.


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## Instrumentation (Mar 11, 2018)

JRaef said:


> With Siemens, you MUST first carefully PLAN OUT your entire system, BEFORE you start programming anything. It's a little more tedious for someone not used to it, but to the Germans, who like everything orderly and straightforward, it avoids any kind of chaos (to their thinking).



Come to think of it, I almost never see Siemens in the US; I've only seen them used in German equipment. Are they used much in the US or is a fairly rare thing? Do they have capabilities to encourage their use over here or is it just a matter of them being so different it's not worth the hassle?


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## gpop (May 14, 2018)

Instrumentation said:


> Come to think of it, I almost never see Siemens in the US; I've only seen them used in German equipment. Are they used much in the US or is a fairly rare thing? Do they have capabilities to encourage their use over here or is it just a matter of them being so different it's not worth the hassle?


If servos are being used for some reason there always seems to be Siemens nearby.


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## JRaef (Mar 23, 2009)

Instrumentation said:


> Come to think of it, I almost never see Siemens in the US; I've only seen them used in German equipment. Are they used much in the US or is a fairly rare thing? Do they have capabilities to encourage their use over here or is it just a matter of them being so different it's not worth the hassle?


In some areas they are more common than in others. It has a lot to do with their distribution and support network. Here in Northern California for example there is only one authorized PLC distributor, located in the Bay Area. So around here, they have a decent market share in the high tech arena and in the wine and beer industry, mostly because a lot of equipment comes in from Europe with Siemens on it, so the users just keep using it elsewhere. But if you get out into the central valley food producers, they are all A-B because there is an A-B distributor with an automation specialist in most of the larger markets. When the tomatoes are coming in to your plant in Fresno, you can't wait 2 days for a part to arrive from a warehouse 200 miles away.


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## MotoGP1199 (Aug 11, 2014)

Most of my stuff is all design build direct to the customer. I mostly use AD PLC's, either Click or Productivity depending on need/cost. The click can really do a lot, the productivity PLC's have a much better program. I have a few programs that can cover a hand full of my common setup. I use the Click for those as the cost savings is worth it when just loading a file onto the PLC. Its really amazing what they can do at such a low cost. Reliably has been great.

I've worked with some Allen Bradley on some equipment at a customers machine shop and I can't believe how much of a pain it is to deal with AB distributors. Thats another reason I like AD, its super easy to get stuff.


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## Jlarson (Jun 28, 2009)

I really like the Productivity controllers. We do a lot of 2000 and 3000 installs. The display on the processor is handy too for working on systems down the road.


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## Mbit (Feb 28, 2020)

Jlarson said:


> I really like the Productivity controllers. We do a lot of 2000 and 3000 installs. The display on the processor is handy too for working on systems down the road.



AD Productivity and Siemens, I prefer productivity. I too like the display on the modules since it makes some basic troubleshooting easier. And the zip links. I just had a problem where one the modules did not have a ZIP link and the field wires were too heavy and putting strain on the RTD module. Could have been avoided with a zip link.


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## Yellow World (Oct 11, 2017)

Most of the equipment in the company has Mitsubishi or Panasonic PLC installed. Two machines came with Fuji, but I don't have any software or cable for them. Old German machines originally were equipped with Eberle PLC, but I've replaced most of them with Mitsubishis already. 

When building or rebuilding panels, I use Mitsubishi FX3 or FX5, depending on if I need communication features or not.


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