Known conflicts between PLC programming software

[strantor]

I've gotten a new laptop powerful enough to run several instances of my old laptop at once in VMWare. So this time around I'm going so segregate my softwares into separate VMs. Not a separate VM for each-and-every single piece of software, but the idea is to only throw the kids that play nice together into the same pool.

I plan to have RSlogix 500 & 5000 (and all the **** that comes with those), Omron CX-One (and all the **** that comes with that) and Sysmac Studio, Siemens Step 7 and Tia portal, and a bunch of other stuff for Automation direct, Idec, Mitsubishi, Pilz, etc and a bunch of VFD/servo software. My old laptop is just filled to the brim with this stuff and half of it doesn't work anymore from everyone trying to hog the same resources. Or from me making booboos, uninstalling parts of the packages and whatnot.

I've added (and removed) this software to this old laptop over a span of several years and no longer remember what I did to cause these problems. Hypothetical example: Did RSLinx stop working when I installed that virtual COM port or was it when I installed that rockwell update patch? Probably neither. Probably that time I tried to uninstall Factory Talk and got the BSOD. Think you know what I mean.

So who are the troublemakers that need to be confined to their own corners? Feel free to speak up about software I haven't mentioned here, because my list is not all inclusive and who knows what I will want to install in the future.

 

[seth350]

Sysmac played well with Lgx5,500,5000 on my pc.
I recall SoMachine not playing well with the AB software. I had run into issues after installing it.

If I were to do it over again, I would buy the biggest fastest external SSD that I could afford and put all the VMs on it, segregated by brand. AB, Omron, etc would have their own pool.

 

[Mad_Poet]

I remember RSLinx wanting to hog the serial port . . .

Whenever I wanted to use some other PLC software I had to
shut down RSLinx so that the other program could get at the
serial port.

Poet.

 

[sebastianp]

Started to do this several years ago.

What I want to say is that for Siemens, Step7 and Wincc7.x tend to work better ( to read not so slow ) when they are on separate machines.
TIA Portal is alone but did not discover yet the key to make it run at normal speed.
SoMachine after some testing installed also alone, again slow but at least running.

Ended up with a 32G laptop, 1 internalSSD 250G, 1 internalSSD 500G, 1 externalSSD 500G, 1 externalHDD 2T only for virtual machines. But I can say at least I am happy to run everything I want pretty smooth.

 

[ASF]

I do the same thing.

Rockwell gets it's own VM, without question. On my setup, it gets three VM's; others have even more.

Siemens gets it's own VM. Big, power-hungry software packages, and if you've got anything non-Siemens related installed on it, tech support will just blame that instead of trying to help you fix the problem.

Other than that, most of my stuff co-exists quite happily. That said, I don't do anything with Omron, nor anything serious with Schneider. If I did, they'd likely get their own VM's too.

On my "miscellaneous" VM, I have lightweight software packages from SEW, Schneider, Automation Direct, Red Lion, Rinstrum, SEW, Sick, Delta, Eaton, Mitsubishi, IFM, Danfoss, Pilz, and several others. All play together nicely.

I also have a general "diagnostic tools" VM, where I install a whole host of troubleshooting tools like wireshark, telnet, and the like. So that no matter which manufacturer is giving me grief, I have a single VM with a tool I can probably use to track it down.

I also have a VM called "virus bait". If I ever have to do something which makes me uneasy about what it'll do to my machine (e.g. installing some freeware tool to do a file conversion, or hacking some registry settings to try and let me do something Windows doesn't approve of), I do it on that VM. Once it starts to show signs of electronic syphilis, I put it out of it's misery and clone a new clean-slate "virus bait" VM.