C
Hi all,
quite unintentionally, I got to take Siemens latest S7 software for a ride. As you regulars may remember, I recently experienced CCW from AB/Rockwell and wondered what might possibly have possessed them to build a behemoth like that. I think I have seen the answer.
It's another behemoth that slices, dices, makes beautiful radish roses and will reputedly program every thing from the HAL 9000 to a toaster oven. In one executable. I needed to work on a S7 1200 and that's the tool. It did load without hanging in a reasonable amount of time, but that isn't a fair comparison as I have my notebook pumped up to the max for the CCW escapade. It also seemed to have a few less rough edges. I took the precaution of using a different hdd so they weren't trashing each others dll's.
In typical Siemens fashion, even with the overview menus and guidance, to accomplish what I needed to do with any confidence, I needed a book. That provided a much needed and appreciated laugh. I downloaded "The Easy Book" It has the same many step procedures as step 7, but they tell you at every turn that it's easy. When I quit snickering, which was quite a bit later, the thing started looking like step 7, which if not very easy, was at least somewhat familiar. And I do give them points for being able to connect with only a crossover cat 5 ethernet cable.
It was a fight getting connected and required rebooting both the PLC and the laptop. The laptop I understand, because it was set to disable the ethernet card on battery power. But why the PLC wanted to be power cycled before the lights started flashing is beyond me. I couldn't keep a straight face using the book, so I went on the support pages to print out the procedure for reading and storing the program on the PLC. Could you guess your way through that? I doubt it, so they lost a point. They are the only vendor whose software I couldn't figure out for the basic tasks. And that includes a package I had to use that was in German.
Anyways, I did get a backup and loaded the new software and it worked. And later, I was able to stumble through to troubleshoot and find a fix for another machine. But very slowly and with the laptop fan whining at max rack. In short, it wasn't a pleasant experience and I enjoy PLC work, or used to.
TIA portal: worse than simply old wine in new bottles, they added a tub of lard.
A little more polished than CCW, but even harder to use.
If these are the future of automation, I feel better about retirement.
Regards
cww Who is expecting The "easy book" for flying a 747.
quite unintentionally, I got to take Siemens latest S7 software for a ride. As you regulars may remember, I recently experienced CCW from AB/Rockwell and wondered what might possibly have possessed them to build a behemoth like that. I think I have seen the answer.
It's another behemoth that slices, dices, makes beautiful radish roses and will reputedly program every thing from the HAL 9000 to a toaster oven. In one executable. I needed to work on a S7 1200 and that's the tool. It did load without hanging in a reasonable amount of time, but that isn't a fair comparison as I have my notebook pumped up to the max for the CCW escapade. It also seemed to have a few less rough edges. I took the precaution of using a different hdd so they weren't trashing each others dll's.
In typical Siemens fashion, even with the overview menus and guidance, to accomplish what I needed to do with any confidence, I needed a book. That provided a much needed and appreciated laugh. I downloaded "The Easy Book" It has the same many step procedures as step 7, but they tell you at every turn that it's easy. When I quit snickering, which was quite a bit later, the thing started looking like step 7, which if not very easy, was at least somewhat familiar. And I do give them points for being able to connect with only a crossover cat 5 ethernet cable.
It was a fight getting connected and required rebooting both the PLC and the laptop. The laptop I understand, because it was set to disable the ethernet card on battery power. But why the PLC wanted to be power cycled before the lights started flashing is beyond me. I couldn't keep a straight face using the book, so I went on the support pages to print out the procedure for reading and storing the program on the PLC. Could you guess your way through that? I doubt it, so they lost a point. They are the only vendor whose software I couldn't figure out for the basic tasks. And that includes a package I had to use that was in German.
Anyways, I did get a backup and loaded the new software and it worked. And later, I was able to stumble through to troubleshoot and find a fix for another machine. But very slowly and with the laptop fan whining at max rack. In short, it wasn't a pleasant experience and I enjoy PLC work, or used to.
TIA portal: worse than simply old wine in new bottles, they added a tub of lard.
A little more polished than CCW, but even harder to use.
If these are the future of automation, I feel better about retirement.
Regards
cww Who is expecting The "easy book" for flying a 747.
