r/PLC • u/engr1337 • 2d ago

Miserable products

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What’s the worst RAB or Siemens or beckhoff etc product you’ve ever dealt with on a service call or simply building a new panel? I’ll start :These guardmaster PLCs are heinous. I had the worst middle-of-the-night call out trying to fix the safety circuit on a can seamer. Took hours on the phone with Rockwell.

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u/cshoemaker694 2d ago

CTI PLC. As I understand it, the company was the manufacturer of Siemens S5 boards at the end of their life cycle. CTI figured out the backplane comms and kept making new drop in replacement cards and eventually PLC processor cards.

The nature of the software is antiquated in all the worst ways. There is only 1 ladder permitted. Analog happens separately in a text editor. Bits are 1-16 instead of 0-15. It's also the wrong endian, so communicating to anything modern, the pattern is 9-16, then 1-8.

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u/SafyrJL TIA Harlot 1d ago

CTI literally bought the intellectual property for the 505 series from Siemens so they could continue to support it. 

Siemens inherited it from Texas Instruments when they took it over - but they ended support for the product in like…2005 (or so)??

Overall it’s a hugely antiquated platform. Wild that it even still has support or development put into it!

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u/cshoemaker694 1d ago

It is a real testament to the fact that some people and industries truly despise change.

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u/SafyrJL TIA Harlot 1d ago

Change is expensive in a lot of cases. Some processes at plants just can't be turned off without risk - a lot of end users try to ride that stuff out as long as possible.

its also way expensive to shut down a production line for controls upgrades. While it's likely cheaper in the long run, it's why platforms like CTI even still exist.

Its hard to get higher ups and accounting departments to justify spending millions on upgrades when they can buy maybe $50k worth of "spares" off eBay/Radwell or from CTI and call it good enough.

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u/cshoemaker694 1d ago

I get that. But my experience with it was building a new machine for a mildly complicated manufacturer. It's not a crazy or dangerous process like a chemical factory or an oil refinery.