Rockwell versus ABB

We have Allen Bradley 5/05 PLCs running our plants, and I am involved in a project to build a new plant using identical equipment and process but the plant control will be by ABB Freelance 800f DCS system. Is there an easy way to convert the running program files in RSLOGIX 500 to ABB Freelance?
I am familiar with Allen Bradley/Rockwell but I am not familiar with ABB Freelance.

Man-hours of labor is the only way to convert it. It's probably not as much "hard" as it is "tedious" to do a straight conversion. The SLC500 instruction set has very little way-out-in-left-field-real-propeller-head capacity, so you'll find an equivalent for everything that's in the old system.

The idea of doing a straight conversion is not, however, your best approach. Your best approach is to get the concerned parties in a room and *WRITE* a real operations specification of what the system should do, then exploit the strengths of the ABB system to your advantage.

Every platform, ABB, Rockwell, Siemens, unbranded east Asian brick plcs, homegrown code, or plain old wires and relays, each has strengths and weaknesses. If you've determined beforehand, either by fiat or corporate edict, which one you'll use, then by all means ferret out and exploit the strengths of that platform to your advantage.

If you're just trying to do a straight conversion so it will "look like the old one" then don't change the platform.

Michael Batchelor
www.IndustrialInformatics.com

Hear, hear!
Sometimes a particular feature can make an enormous difference in solving a particular problem. And lack thereof can really grow a program and add unfathomable complexity.  And you really see this in conversions. It's often better to rewrite. And while I understand the headache of supporting multiple  brands better than most folks, picking the best one for the job can make
a large difference over using the worst or a company standard,

Regards
cww