Micro800 with RSLogix 500 ???

I personally love the 500 environment, but most of that is because I've worked with it enough to know (a lot of) the quirks. It's definitely a little dated, but there's not much you can't do with it if you know how, and it's decently user-friendly as well.

Me too. I am tempted to make a video showing me with RSLogix 500 editor open, 4 different data tables open, two of them of the same file with different radix displays, two trends running, while I am dragging and dropping addresses from one of the data views onto a ladder editor. I will title the video "Show me how to do this in Studio 5000. I'll wait."

And another video where I open a lengthy telemetry master program and search and replace "N10:5/*" with "Well_16/*" and it works just fine because "Well_16" is a symbol that is already defined. "Show me how to use find and replace for tag addresses with wildcards in Studio 5000. I'll wait."

I could go on and on.

I would probably like Studio 5k more if I didn't frequently run into stupid applications of the power it gives these fools writing code for it. Just yesterday, I had to spend an hour trying to figure out how to correct the PLC clock on a Compactlogix because some fool decided he would write a nice and neat AOI called "PLCClock" to wrapper what amounts to 5 rungs of normal logic. Except his code was broken and I could not edit it live. I had to add a new SSV instruction in the MAIN to fix the time and date and leave his broken code alone, because we can't just go shut down a wastewater plant because some wise guy thinks AOIs FTW. Writing AOIs that aren't perfect turns that L83E into a Micrologix 1200. Whad'ya mean I gotta shut 'er down? To change the time?

I could go on and on about this subject too, but it is Friday so I am going to go back to barking about all the reasons you should smack your panelview minus with a hammer and replace it with a red lion.

🔨
:site:
 
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Here's my CCW, Micro 800, MicroLogix ramble

I like the Micro800 line, but I don't perceive the robustness of the MicroLogix. They seem commercial, not industrial. I didn’t use any until around V10. A project brought us 40-some M820s used for HVAC unit control with messaging from a ControlLogix that runs the show. They're great for that and I've used them for a few other projects.

We used a bunch of M810s when we needed smart relays. We added LCDs and put status information on the display to help with troubleshooting. I used the LCD command quite a bit in MicroLogix and miss the display in M820+. Setting IP onboard was nice. I just got two M850s for our first production important M800 application. I don't trust it enough to not have a spare in the cabinet ready to pop in. We'll see how PID control goes with this. Maybe I'll be sorry...

The ML1100 and ML1400 filled a valuable range of applications. The M850 project would have been a ML1100. A very critical, formerly ML1100, project will be S7-1200. I'll probably replace two existing ML1100s with M221 for our final ML1100 spares. I'm also looking at BRX as a MicroLogix replacement, but haven't tried one yet. It's beneficial if a controller speaks easily with ControlLogix.

I get the Fisher-Price reference. The M800 hardware has a toy-ness to it. Ladder is ugly and clunky in CCW, but it does ST nicely. FB is fine. It's far from Logix5K, but I'm getting used to it.

CCW is adequate for drives, but not spectacular. The mismatch dumbness is similar to M800 mismatch dumbness, but I work through it.

I also like the PanelView 800 for a simple HMI. I wish they would integrate with ControlLogix. I'm not a fan of other PanelViews.
 
But what is far, far, far more likely is that there is a technical and marketing effort to retain MicroLogix users by improving look-and-feel of CCW and the usability of conversion tools.
I agree, far more likely. I suspect that an original statement along the lines of "we're working on making CCW look and feel more like RSLogix" slowly morphed into "you'll be able to use RSLogix with the Micro800" by the time it made its way to me.

But I sooooo want it to be true. :nodi:
 
Me too. I am tempted to make a video showing me with RSLogix 500 editor open, 4 different data tables open, two of them of the same file with different radix displays, two trends running, while I am dragging and dropping addresses from one of the data views onto a ladder editor. I will title the video "Show me how to do this in Studio 5000. I'll wait."

And another video where I open a lengthy telemetry master program and search and replace "N10:5/*" with "Well_16/*" and it works just fine because "Well_16" is a symbol that is already defined. "Show me how to use find and replace for tag addresses with wildcards in Studio 5000. I'll wait."

I could go on and on.

I would probably like Studio 5k more if I didn't frequently run into stupid applications of the power it gives these fools writing code for it. Just yesterday, I had to spend an hour trying to figure out how to correct the PLC clock on a Compactlogix because some fool decided he would write a nice and neat AOI called "PLCClock" to wrapper what amounts to 5 rungs of normal logic. Except his code was broken and I could not edit it live. I had to add a new SSV instruction in the MAIN to fix the time and date and leave his broken code alone, because we can't just go shut down a wastewater plant because some wise guy thinks AOIs FTW. Writing AOIs that aren't perfect turns that L83E into a Micrologix 1200. Whad'ya mean I gotta shut 'er down? To change the time?

I could go on and on about this subject too, but it is Friday so I am going to go back to barking about all the reasons you should smack your panelview minus with a hammer and replace it with a red lion.

🔨
:site:

Exactly, I do like 5000 as well, but sometimes its capacity for complexity makes things that take 1-2 steps in 500 way more difficult than they need to be.
 
Me too. I am tempted to make a video showing me with RSLogix 500 editor open, 4 different data tables open, two of them of the same file with different radix displays....
while I am dragging and dropping addresses from one of the data views onto a ladder editor.....
I will title the video "Show me how to do this in Studio 5000. I'll wait."

You can get the same data table open in two different windows -- you just have to be a bit tricky about it.

Open the first data table as normal. Find the tag in Monitor view, click in the "Style" column, and change it to the radix you want (Decimal, Hex, Octal, Binary).
Open another Parameter table, and then change the Scope (upper left pulldown) to match the first table. Find the same tag, and change its "Style" view.

You can also select a tag (highlight the entire tag name) in the data table and drag that into an instruction in the ladder editor. No, you can't grab an individual bit of a DINT; it has to be the whole word. But if after you've placed the DINT, doubleclicking opens a a pulldown that shows the tag in the data table (allowing you to pick a different tag if you fat moused it), and in that tag a pulldown that allows you to pick a bit AND which also acts like the old "Usage" view, indicating which bits are currently used (in gray), as well as showing the annotation if you hover over it.

No, not as easy as with 500, but doable.
 
I feel a bit ridiculous asking this because it seems totally unachievable and very hard to believe.

Our Rockwell distributor told us that AB is working on an upgrade to the Micro800 series that will allow it to be programmed with RSLogix 500. (Technically I didn't hear the words come out of his mouth; this was relayed to me by a coworker who met with him.)

Is there any truth to this whatsoever?

I doubt they will be building any functionality into RS Logix 500 since they are sunsetting most controllers used with 500 AFAIK the Micrologix 1400 is the only thing still in support and is only sold for replacement and not new projects.

What he was likely talking about (His info would still be dated) was the themes to make CCW v11 and forward instructions look and work like those in RS Logix 500 so people who had no experience with IEC 61131-3 LD programming could still use it to upgrade MIcrologix systems to the Micro 800 series (I know there is a conversion tool but I am talking about support)

This is the only thing I can think of he meant that makes sense.
 
Me too. I am tempted to make a video showing me with RSLogix 500 editor open, 4 different data tables open, two of them of the same file with different radix displays, two trends running, while I am dragging and dropping addresses from one of the data views onto a ladder editor. I will title the video "Show me how to do this in Studio 5000. I'll wait."

And another video where I open a lengthy telemetry master program and search and replace "N10:5/*" with "Well_16/*" and it works just fine because "Well_16" is a symbol that is already defined. "Show me how to use find and replace for tag addresses with wildcards in Studio 5000. I'll wait."

I could go on and on.

I would probably like Studio 5k more if I didn't frequently run into stupid applications of the power it gives these fools writing code for it. Just yesterday, I had to spend an hour trying to figure out how to correct the PLC clock on a Compactlogix because some fool decided he would write a nice and neat AOI called "PLCClock" to wrapper what amounts to 5 rungs of normal logic. Except his code was broken and I could not edit it live. I had to add a new SSV instruction in the MAIN to fix the time and date and leave his broken code alone, because we can't just go shut down a wastewater plant because some wise guy thinks AOIs FTW. Writing AOIs that aren't perfect turns that L83E into a Micrologix 1200. Whad'ya mean I gotta shut 'er down? To change the time?

I could go on and on about this subject too, but it is Friday so I am going to go back to barking about all the reasons you should smack your panelview minus with a hammer and replace it with a red lion.

🔨
:site:

Exactly if Rockwell would bring the best of 500 into Logix (including the stability that would require recoding on another platform) then we would really have something that kicks behinds and takes names.
 
Misinformation isn't new.


In the late 90's I was using RSLogix 5 and 500 and was told by a distributor salesman that a new RSLogix 5000 was coming out that would combine and replace the 5 and 500 softwares - not anything about a new line of PLC's.
 
CCW is somewhat usable - but it is my least preferred programming environment. It is clunky, bloated, and performs poorly. I'd rather use Automation Direct products before CCW.

My biggest complaint is that you can't put descriptions at the bit level - so you have to use individual tags for each bit if you want to have descriptions. You can't use a DINT, for example, and assign different things to each bit.

I'm no fan of TIA Portal either - but at least you can toggle the descriptions on and use them at the bit level.
 
My biggest complaint is that you can't put descriptions at the bit level - so you have to use individual tags for each bit if you want to have descriptions. You can't use a DINT, for example, and assign different things to each bit.
+1 on that! I was translating a MicroLogix program to CCW where I had used individual bits of a word as part of a state machine. The bits were named and I could control them individually, while also manipulating the entire word when necessary. After hours of trying to figure out an equivalent method in CCW, I ended up just using the same logic and dropping the bit descriptions.

Being able to create user defined functions, function blocks, and UDTs in CCW is a definite plus. And I do like using structured text for certain things. But I just can't get over the clunkiness and inefficiency of it. "Somewhat usable" is a good way to describe it.
 

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