Title says it all. I keep hearing mixed reviews about CODESYS. Some people swear by it because it's hardware-agnostic, while others complain about the IDE stability and UI.

For those who use it daily: Is it actually worth learning and adopting, or is it just a budget alternative to TIA Portal/Rockwell? What's your honest take?

Hi everyone, I received a Allen-Bradley CompactLogix 1769-L18ER-BB1B but i don't have a properly power supply. Does anyone know if i could use a PC's one? Or any other way to turn it on and check if it's working. I really don't have any idea of how do it, i accept all the recommendations.

Hi everyone, i am in debate with a security consultant for OT, basically their claim is that NGFWs plus Identity and access management and in some cases EDR(which i am against in OT) is strong enough to hold back threat actors.

As a low level security researcher i believe their security model is incomplete because attackers actively utilise direct syscalls and binaries from authorised processes.

What are your experiences in OT environments around security and todays security tools?

I'm new to PLC programming and work has been letting me dip my toes into assisting our maintenance crew with fixing aging equipment.

I've got a servo driven auger that gets a signal from an old Mitsubishi FX1S-14MT PLC. The HMI started reporting recently that the PLC was disconnected so we got a used one with an identical model number to replace it.

Everything works but the signal chain to servo via the HMI. It even lets us trigger it manually in the ladder logic through an old GX Developer install I managed to get running on a VM in Windows 10.

I feel like I'm missing something dumb like a misconfigured baud rate or default setting I should have checked when reading the program from the old PLC before removing it.

Any direction would be greatly appreciated🙏. This is the first time in a long time I have actually felt excited to go to work. This type of problem solving is really scratching an itch in my brain. 😜🤩🤯

Morning,

I’ve done various small projects but about to undertake a project which will have different alarms. How is best to handle alarms which will cause other parts of the machine to alarm? Ideally I want to capture the initial alarm not any of the secondary alarms/faults.

How is best to do this?

I've been on both sides of the argument for and against this. Currently as a builder with gas processing programs that control potentially hazardous processes. Our director does not want to provide passwords to give the customer access to the running programs fearing they might attempt a modification that could result in injury, death or damage. Do you open your programs to the end user? We provide graphical insight to all IO, digital and analog, process state and valves status via an HMI.

Hi,

Ive recently installed VirtualBox, using an XP iso and installer RSLogix5000 v13.04 as we I need a backup for getting online in the interim.

Ive got the software, got FT Activation Manager, installed dongle for licensing and can see the binding and licences within available activations. Whenever I try to open Logix5000 it just comes up with no activations available.

Anyone had any success with this or seen a similar issue?

I saw the news that this PHP vulnerability had just come up. Then, it dawned on me just how screwed up it would be if this vulnerability was used to take whole plants offline.

How does this impact PLCs? How susceptible are they?

What steps can we take on an integrator level to mitigate the vulnerability?

Are any plants already taking steps?

How would we protect legacy systems that 100% do not have the means to protect themselves?

I am using FTLinx Gateway to read data via OPC UA. The issue is that after adding 65 UA Tag Lists, I am no longer able to select additional PLCs to retrieve data from them. In FTLinx Gateway, I can see a total of 67 PLCs, yet I have configured 86 in the FactoryTalk Network Browser / FactoryTalk Administration Console.

The version of FTLinx Gateway is 6.60.00, and I have a LINXGW.PROFESSIONAL license.

I hope you can assist me; thank you.

Has anyone evaluated the SLM-RP4 from www.synergy-logic.com ? It looks like it is a RevPi competitor. It runs openplc, has I/O cards, and UL/CE.

I keep seeing these wireless preventative maintenance sensors online that capture motor vibration and temperature.

I was wondering if any of you guys had any experience implementing these sensors on the shop floor. I’m looking for a similar sensor, but it plugs back to the PLC where the alarms are generated and handled.

Does anyone have any suggestions. I see that automation direct has some analog vibration sensors and that IFM has one that connects via IOlink.

Thanks!

Had some weird Internet stuff happen and now i have entire rio rack faulted with error 16#0118 that wont clear. Tried older program and also changing module also tried disabling handshake and mismatch identity still wouldnt clear.

Last we have metler toledo scale heads (at least 6 of then faulting with error16#0204.
Any info i could learn id greatly appreciate.

Hi,

I try to run wincc simulation on V20 but im always getting site nog reachable and acces denied. does anybody know what can be the problem? i already searched the internet far and wide but no solution found yet. this is a test projects, but i have also this problem with projects for clients.

Hello, I am doing my first project ever using servo motors but i am using a Siemens s1200 and it seems that there isn’t any mc torquelimiting so I have to use a Siemens made block called TorqueFB_TEL750. But I can’t really grasp what every input does or output. There doesn’t even seem to be a mode option for fixed stop detection or torque mode. Is there anybody who knows anything about this? And please do explain as if I am really stupid, servos are very new to me

I am beginner in learning plc. I want to go really in depth in allen bradly studio5000 for the starter. I came accross this SolisPLC and want to know if it is worth it. though i do not have any subscription of Studio5000 but i do have the software that was made to work like it. plclogix5000 by Logic Design. right now i am very confused whether i should enroll in SolisPLC. My goal is to learn in depth studio5000 from beginning ?

Hi everyone,

Is it possible to communicate over PPI using the Siemens PC Adapter USB A2 (6GK1571-0BA00-0AA0)?

If so, how do I configure it to communicate with an S7-200 PLC in STEP 7 Micro/WIN?

Thanks for your help!

Hi all

Im currently commissioning a site and need some help with the drives.

One specific panel is giving us an error where after a power dip ( its Africa, so its frequent) the drives shows 44 - Switching on Inhibited (missing safety signal) even though the setting for safety check is off

Now a reset doesn't clear the issue, but p972 reset clears it and then i can go.

But is there anyway to prevent this?

got a job in a bind, need to send 4-20mA to a plc to read live tank levels. clean fuel, slow level changes from pump inlet / outlet (no foaming or churning) , no explosion proof req'mt, ambient pressure and room temp, nothing crazy.

the engineers and contractors, in all their glory, spec'd and approved a sensor that wont fit in the tank. the correct sensor intended on plan set is a magnetostrictive float on a rod, but is 8-12 weeks out. plc vendor says they dont care what instrumentation is used, long as it sends 4-20. I have a radar level sensor in stock , IFM LW2720 . fits the bill, cut sheet says it'll work.

question is, before I play the hero and swap in radar, anyone have a reason to caution doing this?
the measurement task is really simple, far as demands from instrumentation, but I havent used radar before.

i've found other issues with using ultrasonic transducers drifting, or being fiddly, i've had submerged pressure transducers drift over time. never had issues with magnetostrictive, other than having to be sure to order the exact size for the tank ( exactly the issue here).

so i got this radar sensor to play around with to see if we can stock these as standard cause they'll work on every size / shape tank we integrate with so we dont have to rely on garbage info from plans / others. i just havent had time to put it through paces to be confident i wont shoot myself in the foot.

We have a global manufacturing footprint and as such, use a global SI who is supported at each location by local SIs.

In any given month 5-10 different engineers can access a sites PLC to make project edits or improvements. We manage it well in terms of security and such but we’re completely loosing the change management. Sadly our change logs are excel sheets and there’s just too many to keep up with given the various sites. I’m seeing too many edits that are being made and not correctly recorded. If a change needs rolled back, we’re missing the detail as to why it was applied, potentially re introducing a bug that was fixed. It’s like managing children who don’t want to open an excel sheet!

We’re mainly Rockwell focused but some sites use Siemens. We have Rockwell asset center but it seems it’s fairly easy to bypass. We’ve explored Version dog, now Octoplant and there’s no way I’m getting that through the budget at £20K a site, even with bulk pricing it’s still a clean fortune.

Any other solutions you lot have come across in your fields? I need something that engineers can’t bypass but can still allow online edits and multiple users online at once. Any thoughts?

Thanks for reading. One frustrated maintenance director.

I'm having trouble connecting a Delta DVP-14SS211T PLC to a Yaskawa SGD7S-120A servo drive.

I want to use the PLC to generate the control pulses for the servo motor. However, connecting it directly could burn out the servo drive's input, and I'll be using other PLC outputs to trigger relays. Is there any problem with connecting the 0V from the 24 VDC power supply to the 0V from the servo drive’s internal 12 VDC power supply at the common terminal of the PLC’s outputs?

Hi all, I'm looking for advice from anyone who has solved this cleanly in the Beckhoff ecosystem.

Context

• We have a TwinCAT 3 solution made of a PLC project, a TwinCAT HMI project and a TwinSAFE project, running on Beckhoff IPCs.
• The system is portable and is marketed as a product. Think of a mobile solar + battery + generator system on a trailer.
• More and more units are going out to the field.
• The units are usually offline (no internet) or on networks we don't control.
• Each unit can have its own configuration, managed through TcRecipeManagement. That configuration must survive the update.
• End users will run the updates, not our engineers.

Requirements

1. Simple for a non-specialist to run.
2. Reliable: atomic, or at least able to recover. It should never leave a unit half-updated.
3. Idempotent: running it twice, or re-running it after a failure, should give the same result.
4. Keeps the unit's configuration and recipes.
5. Works offline.

What we've looked at

• Connecting with TcXaeShell over the network and activating/publishing. This works for us internally. It isn't realistic for end users.
• Beckhoff Service Tool (BST). This would mean shipping USB sticks to every site for every release, which would be an operational nightmare at our scale.
• Automation Interface + PowerShell script that copies the individual parts (PLC boot project, HMI publish output, and so on) into the right places on the target. I've tried this the most and had the least success. It often leaves the system in an unknown state I can't trust, and it feels fragile across TwinCAT versions. I call this the Rube Goldberg method.

Beckhoff support confirmed these three options. They didn't have anything more elegant.

What I'm used to

I come from a general software engineering background. There I'd expect a versioned, signed artifact (an installer, a package, a container image, anything similar) that moves tested code to production safely, can be checked, and can be rolled back. I'm surprised I can't find an equivalent here. This can't be an uncommon problem for Beckhoff OEMs.

Questions

1. How do you package and ship TwinCAT updates to field units? Do you use an installer, a script, BST, remote access, or something else?
2. Has anyone got a reliable offline, end-user-run process covering PLC + HMI + TwinSAFE together? The safety project is the part I'm least sure how to handle without XAE.
3. How do you keep recipes and configuration through the update? Do you export and re-import them, store them outside the boot folder, or rely on persistent data?
4. Does anyone use an A/B or rollback approach, for example keeping the previous boot folder and switching back if a check after the update fails?
5. Have you hit any problems with mismatched TwinCAT runtime or HMI server versions between the build machine and field units?
6. Is there a Beckhoff feature or product I've missed that's meant for this?

Any war stories, or "don't do what we did" lessons are very welcome. Thanks!

Hi everyone!

I work as a PLC programmer at GM, and my new role requires me to work with Siemens PLCs. My background is mainly with Rockwell Studio 5000, so I already have experience with PLC programming, troubleshooting, and industrial automation.

I need to learn Siemens STEP 7 as quickly as possible and become confident enough to work with it professionally.

I have access to STEP 7 Classic (SIMATIC Manager) and can dedicate about one hour per day to studying.

My main priorities are:

• Understanding the Siemens programming structure and how it differs from Rockwell.
• Becoming good at troubleshooting and online diagnostics.
• Learning how to navigate and understand existing projects.
• Being able to modify and develop PLC logic confidently.

If you were in my position, what would you do to learn as quickly as possible?

Would you focus on official Siemens documentation, practical exercises, online courses, or studying real projects?

Are there any specific resources, exercises, or learning strategies you would recommend?

Since I already know Rockwell, I don't want to waste time learning basic PLC concepts I already understand. I want to focus on the Siemens-specific concepts and become productive as quickly as possible.

I'd really appreciate advice from people who have made the transition from Rockwell to Siemens!

Thanks!