Create a licensing or expiration date for PLC program?

Join Date
Sep 2021
Location
lima
Posts
4
Hello everyone,

I want to know if there is a way to create or add a licensing or/and expiration date for Siemens PLC or if there other brand that offers this kind of feature?
 
Unless it was clearly stated in the sales agreement before the sale that (at least in the USA) could be a big legal problem for the programmer.


A few people here don't like the term, but it is referred to as a Logic Time-Bomb, and has resulted in lawsuits.


As for doing it the reality is it's pretty easy in any platform that has a built in clock/calendar.
 
You can lock it many ways.
Locking based on run hours or a calendar date are a couple.

The critical code & associated tags would then need to be source protected,
so it cannot be seen or reset by adjusting the tag.

I have seen where the client can pay for different options in the code
& they get a password to enable them or extend the run time.
One had a countdown on a screen,
"Program will time out in x days, call xxx-xxxx to unlock."

As mentioned above, the end user must know about it.

I have been paid to unlock a protected PLC before when the integration company
would not give it up & the machine was messing up.

Newer PLC's are considerably harder if not nearly impossible to hack when protected.

One of the funniest ones I ever saw was if you duplicated the code
into a 2nd PLC the SCADA would only show dancing girls on the screen.
It had everybody laughing. But that would probably get HR involved these days.
 
This is not something obscure, We are machine manufacturer and want to lock the software after a while when they get it for renting.


1. Protect your program so they can't get in it.


2. Compare the Year, Month and Day to the expiration date. Also compare the date to what it was last check to make sure they don't turn the calendar back.



3. If not expired turn a bit on that is checked throughout the program with the K1 or E-stop to allow it to run.


4. If the date bit is not on set a display bit that overlays a huge window on the HMI that covers everything with an EXPIRED LICENSE popup.
 
1 - Do a financial background check on your customer (Dunn & Bradstreet). Identify first if they're going to be a problem and arrange suitable payment terms.

2 - Do a UCC filing on the equipment so if they default, the sheriff can go in and retrieve the equipment.

I did this twice back in the 90s and had absolutely no problems getting timely payments per the purchase agreement.
 
Hello everyone,

I want to know if there is a way to create or add a licensing or/and expiration date for Siemens PLC or if there other brand that offers this kind of feature?


I do not in any agree with or encourage any form of limitation on machine operation; code protection I somewhat understand.


That aside, pick a platform that give you the option to *not* download the source code to the PLC. Anything CodeSys does that.
 
1 - Do a financial background check on your customer (Dunn & Bradstreet). Identify first if they're going to be a problem and arrange suitable payment terms.

2 - Do a UCC filing on the equipment so if they default, the sheriff can go in and retrieve the equipment.

I did this twice back in the 90s and had absolutely no problems getting timely payments per the purchase agreement.


I had a stamping plant default on a controls upgrade for a 1200 ton press worth about $2 million, not including the feed line on it.


When the sheriff seized the control panel & locked it out of production they couldn't pay me fast enough - even offered to drive me to their bank to get the check certified.
 
I had a stamping plant default on a controls upgrade for a 1200 ton press worth about $2 million, not including the feed line on it.


When the sheriff seized the control panel & locked it out of production they couldn't pay me fast enough - even offered to drive me to their bank to get the check certified.

Perfect, worked as intended.
 
Just a side thought to this,


Since almost all Windows programs are basically rented out on an annual license now I wonder how far off limited licenses are for PLC's and HMI's?



I know the FT license can be sold with an expiration date, and Rockwell is pushing for annual version purchase of Studio5000 now.



A lot of machines with PC based controls already have licenses - quite a few come with a 30 or 90 day license that needs updated annually, even Visual Studio Community (which is free) has to go online and update its license annually.


I really don't think adding a license key to PLC firmware is going to be tough, or too far off. Plus it's another way to force hardware upgrades if the license is no longer updated (Think PLC5 has to be replaced with a CLX by next month)
 

Similar Topics

Hello, I've been trying to learn this a while now and still have not found out how this works. I have an Omron CJ2M PLC and an ABB ACS 355 VFD...
Replies
1
Views
191
Hello, I have to deal with iFix again and am looking at the most efficient way to create alarms to display in iFix, i.e. not creating an...
Replies
0
Views
138
Good morning to all, I have the following issue, I installed everything of intouch including the patch, it is the 2023 version. The...
Replies
0
Views
284
So, I finally got versioin 27 installed on my Windows 10 VM. However, now I can't upload a project from my lab controller. I have the above error...
Replies
0
Views
1,116
Hi all, I have few GB of logged data created by RS View 32 Works, it is all in .DBF format. At the moment, my company wants to shift all data to...
Replies
14
Views
1,395
Back
Top Bottom