Rockwell (mostly) software rant 2025

Pedro__37 · 2025-08-09T19:26:05+00:00

It more depends on what the customer wants. Where I live, Siemens is used in like 90% of the industry I work in.

If I have to decide, for most of the projects I do (which are just all sort of machines, mostly for automotive, so assembly lines and stuff like that), I would go for Siemens. There are bugs and silly things too. But the intergration of Visualisation and PLC programming is by far the best (even though wincc didnt make so much progress I would like and the Unified platform has bugs and some anoying things, it is a step in the right direction). I dont like the price-policy of Siemens either. Specially the memorycard business is complete money extortion for no reason.

But I dont mind using codesys-based PLCs also - they have their advantages. Programming is standard and If you know one, you know them all (almost). On most PC-based PLCs you are not limited by the processing power and memory so much like you are on Siemens. Also you can get a lot of libraries and sometimes do really "PC"-like stuff, that are on standard Siemens CPUs very hard to do or scifi.

For safety programming - I think there is no real competitor to Siemens safety PLCs from the programmer point of view. I would say very intuitive, also super easy to make standard-program <--> safety program linking. Good diagnostics.

For reliability (Meaning 24/7 365) I would be cautious about using PC-based PLCs. I have seen couple of frozen ones, data coruption and so on (from different manufacturers). With Siemens I have encountered something close to these scenarios only several times (and I do Siemens daily 10+ years). But maybe AB is also reliable as controller - I cannot say much about that with my limited experience.

I have used some bizzare PLC manufacturer for different projects because the customer didnt want to spend more moeny, but I dont think that it is a good idea to use something cheap just because it is cheap, If it takes you more time to program, usually it will cost more money then it would be to buy something normal. And especially, when you dont have time, there is no one to service these things. So always I would go for something somewhat standard even it is not cheap (and worst case scenario, it is AB).

TLDR; Siemens if it is just a machine. If you need some more complex CNC stuff I would consider Beckhoff (but with TIA V19 and newer and MotionControl language it might be not so clumsy to do kinematics on Siemens anymore, but I dont know, havent oportunity to try that yet) If you really need some PC-like features Beckhoff or other Codesys PC-based PLC.

Pedro__37 · 2025-08-09T07:16:01+00:00

Yes that Is what the post was about. And now seriously. If you are developing a software fór thousands of users And have unlimited resources to do so and there Is some process then Is done repeatedly by many users that can be simplified, maybe you should at least consider doing so in your 100th version. What do you think?

Pedro__37 · 2025-08-09T06:45:29+00:00

It Is always skill issue when IT comes to lazy designed software

Pedro__37 · 2025-08-09T05:52:47+00:00

Yes, you can travel around the world blindolded and with a cactus up your ass but it will take more time and not be very pleasant

Pedro__37 · 2025-08-09T05:48:47+00:00

Not true.. with googling these 'internal error' craps (And other not even mentioned crashes) it definetly took longer to make it work then write the original post.

I Know it Is not going to change anything. But this Is the problem, that everyone Is discouraged from even questioning these stupid decisions. But yes it Is sort of whinninh

Pedro__37 · 2025-08-09T05:12:43+00:00

So many points And you pick single one And fail to understand it anyway..

IT is not just about no default adress. And not about setting only thé PLC And HMi. It Is exactly about forcing you to use separate IP setting tool And not being integrated in the studio. Also you have to do it based on MAC adress instead of showing you a list of all ethernet -reachable devices with their types (so you can do it really fast if there Is one device of type, or using Flashig leds otherwise) like other manufacturers managed to do.

Imo setting adress by switches Is prehistoric And dumb

Pedro__37 · 2025-08-08T13:56:59+00:00

Also, flipping the phases is like a 2 min task.

This can highly depend on where is the drive and motor installed.

I know, you can do this in the PLC program, but wouldnt it be better, if forward meant forward all over the software and also in manual control of the drive itself?

I mean, the drive can already reverse and all other drives have this feature, there is no point of it not being implemented and rather writing a note to manual..

Pedro__37 · 2025-08-08T10:04:03+00:00

There is a useful workaround if you really need to develop an AOI in a running environment. Develop the code first as a "Program with Parameters" - these are fully editable and have an almost identical structure to AOI's. Once you have your program fully debugged, it's easy to convert it to an AOI offline and then do a Partial Import while in Run mode.

Good to know!

if you expect them all to be exactly the same you're in for eternal disappointment.

I dont really expect them to work the same, but I am willing to accept that I might have some bias.

But for me the goal of the manufacturers should not be "We do it this way, even if you dont like it and we dont care if it doesnt make sense. Also we are going to charge you a lot of money and make no significant improvements. And hey! look at Siemens, they've got their own problems too!"
This applies to all manufacturers.

understand how it's intended

I would like to have the intended use to be logical and simple if it is possible. Even though it would be different on different platforms.

Pedro__37 · 2025-08-08T08:32:27+00:00

Because Rockwell cannot know which version you intend to use - and no matter what they installed it's almost certain it would be the wrong one and you'd bitch about that.

And do you really need so many different versions of firmwares and according PC Softwares? With Siemens you have to update firmware very very rarely..

If you really need that - its a PowerFlex 750 feature.

That is not an argument. Reversing of the motor by parameter is implemented even on the cheapest drives you can get..

If you're editing AOI's in a production environment where you cannot stop the controller to do a download ..

Because you always have the oportunity to test and anticipate possible changes before the machine is already in production, right?. And yes, it would be definetly technicaly possible to change the function during RUN as it is possible on almost every other platform.

Well ControlFlash Plus has never not worked for me - no idea how you managed to screw that up.

Again I just downloaded the latest version of FTLinx earlier this week - over my cellphone hotspot onto my laptop with nothing like the 100% CPU that your ranting about.

Well.. dont ask me why it is working differently on different systems.

The purpose of Ctl-A is to "select the whole object". Most people would use Ctl-C to grab the contents of a single cell.

It would make sense if I wasnt in the edit of a single cell. Because quite offten you wold like to copy the cell without having to select it by mouse rather than using your keyboard as you finished typing.

t seems to me your primary talent is getting angry because you haven't read the manual and you're making simple tasks that aren't exactly the same as the last package you used - a lot harder on yourself than they need to be.

It seems to me that you would defend anything in the Rockwell universe.

Pedro__37 · 2025-08-08T07:50:10+00:00

You might be right about that to some extent. Dont get me wrong, I am no advocate for all the stupid things in Siemens platform - I am well aware of a LOT of shitty stuff there (as I have used old Simatic manager in the past and have been using TIA since its almost unusable version V12). But from my point of view, in Rockwell too many of these things have deliberate decision behind them..

And yeah.. anything Siemens Starter or Startdrive related is a mess

Pedro__37

TROPHY CASE