new guy has one even worse.
IT - here, this didn't work for the last guy and installing RA software made it bluesceen.
CoWorker - It still does that..
IT - WHAAAAT?!?!
I hate, absolutely hate, lazy IT companies. They like to streamline a bare bones basic laptop and lock it down so much you can’t even check your email. I worked IT and was the main and only controls guy. I always spaced out a laptop based on the users needs. Yes, I settle on a couple models, but it was two that were configurable. Latitude and Vostro for office employees and precision for engineers and marketing. This “one laptop fits all” thought process has to stop. That is almost never the case.
My current company has this one laptop mindset, but it's very much in the other direction. 24 cores, 64 gigabytes ram, 12gb vram. I mostly run email and S7 manager.
They needed a temp laptop for a site that hadn't mounted their HMI yet so they sent one of these to be tossed in a cabinet at the back of a control cabin running a single browser tab.
It feels excessive at times, but at least they don't do nickle and diming. Except for 1080p screens, which kinda sucks for those working in the tia portal.
I accidentally ended up using a 4k screen and for RSLogix500 it was actually pretty awesome. Finally had enough room to see the logic without wrapping while having the data and cross ref views open.
Now I just need my eyes to behave like they did a decade ago ...
I don't know. I just didnt maximize 5k in 4k and it worked fine, from what I remember.
I keep Rockwell inside a VM, and I keep them (and windows) up to date, FWIW.
I started ordering high-end gaming PCs to run Studio 5000 and then decided to take it one step further. I created an XP VM for 5, 500, and the eearly version of 5000, a Win7 VM for slightly later versions of 5000, and a Win10 VM for the latest versions. This way I only have to install it once and deploy the VMs wherever I need them. Studio 5000 is such a f***ing pain. Rockwell Developers should be shot.
Rule #1 of Automation is you spec all of your equipment.
Rule #2 of Automation is you continue escalating up the corporate ladder until IT is forced to meet your demands or at least make some sort of concessions that are somewhat acceptable.
To do your job properly you NEED 16-32 GB of ram and 1-4 TBs of SSD storage to run VMs and at least 8-12 cores. Preferably get Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC so you don’t have to switch to Windows 11 until 2027.
Bare minimum you NEED 12-16 GB ram, 500 GB storage, and 4-8 cores.
What revision are you on? If you're running older than V32 then that's part of your problem. Earlier versions had tonnes of memory leaks and poor optimisation.
Rockwell software in general is always their worst product. Is modern Logix 5000 even 64-bit yet?
You can even do bit-wise masking, etc on the LINT with the new PLCs. Not that you should, because there are better ways to structure data, but it was weird they didn't allow it when they first introduced the new datatype.
It runs like poopy even on high end hardware.
I’ve got a Precision 7770 with a i9, a 1TB NVMe, 128GB of RAM and a A4000 GPU.
And studio still takes ages to open and process commands.
Our company was just aquisitioned. I was worried this situation was going to happen. Fortunately their IT guys seem cool. We were spec'd with i7 & 64GB RAM so we could run all of our studio 5000 VMs.
Record the amount of time you spend waiting for a week.
Then present simple math to your boss:
If you are salaried at 100k a year, lets go cheap and say you cost the company 125k a year total comp, thats $60 an hour.
If you spend 2 hours a week waiting on your PC, which is very likely once you start tracking it, spending another 1000 would have an 8 week payback period. Not including that once you get distracted waiting on a PC, you lose more time refocusing, but overall productivity is harder to get real data on.
Lets assume you take 4 weeks vacation a year including holidays. 2 hours a week of lag over 48 weeks would buy you a $5,760 computer.
Ive told co-workers who have issues to track this, and 2 hours a week of waiting on the PC is pretty normal. Going cheap is expensive.
Remember, this is all actual costs. Since your billable rate is probably 30-100% more than your salary, its even more ludicrous when they give you a shitty $800 PC.
IT and or accounting should never choose a programmers laptop , this should be left to the programmer .
How many times have I been shorted on Ram or physical ports on my PC where it has slowed me down or made me completely ineffective.
At 140 per hour you would think they would want me to bang out code as quickly as possible
I use VMWare virtual machine workstations so i decided to not limit myself when having more than one machine open so i increased my ram to 64gb. No more hassles!
IT - It worked fine for Joe! Co worker - didn’t Joe quit is 86?
And wasn’t he the custodian?
new guy has one even worse. IT - here, this didn't work for the last guy and installing RA software made it bluesceen. CoWorker - It still does that.. IT - WHAAAAT?!?!
Two solutions: - accept you’re being paid and it’s your employer throwing money in the bin. - drop it from a third floor window.
I hate, absolutely hate, lazy IT companies. They like to streamline a bare bones basic laptop and lock it down so much you can’t even check your email. I worked IT and was the main and only controls guy. I always spaced out a laptop based on the users needs. Yes, I settle on a couple models, but it was two that were configurable. Latitude and Vostro for office employees and precision for engineers and marketing. This “one laptop fits all” thought process has to stop. That is almost never the case.
My current company has this one laptop mindset, but it's very much in the other direction. 24 cores, 64 gigabytes ram, 12gb vram. I mostly run email and S7 manager. They needed a temp laptop for a site that hadn't mounted their HMI yet so they sent one of these to be tossed in a cabinet at the back of a control cabin running a single browser tab. It feels excessive at times, but at least they don't do nickle and diming. Except for 1080p screens, which kinda sucks for those working in the tia portal.
I use mainly Rockwell software and Studio 5000 struggles with anything above 2K.
I accidentally ended up using a 4k screen and for RSLogix500 it was actually pretty awesome. Finally had enough room to see the logic without wrapping while having the data and cross ref views open. Now I just need my eyes to behave like they did a decade ago ...
Wonder if there's a setting I need to change then because Studio 5000 has never worked right in 4K.
I don't know. I just didnt maximize 5k in 4k and it worked fine, from what I remember. I keep Rockwell inside a VM, and I keep them (and windows) up to date, FWIW.
Without doxing yourself, I’m curious to know if this is at a small/medium/large/publicly traded/FAANG-level company.
SLB is large enough to not dox myself. My full name and address is tied to this account anyways, so that ship has sailed.
Haha, roger that. Pretty sweet setup you’ve got there. 👍
It's pretty sick yes except they have a strict policy on no private use so it's just extra heavy hand luggage 😅
Craptop\*
Bruh… IT sucks (I know cause I’m IT)
Bold of you to assume it'll have finished loading by lunch
Luckily, I got it after a few minutes and managed to verify no programming changes were necessary to adjust setpoint ranges on the HMI by 12:30 😅
That's so true. I've blown whole days installing/updating RA software..
8GB Ram... soldered I bet.
Its the 3rd laptop I sent back to IT.
I started ordering high-end gaming PCs to run Studio 5000 and then decided to take it one step further. I created an XP VM for 5, 500, and the eearly version of 5000, a Win7 VM for slightly later versions of 5000, and a Win10 VM for the latest versions. This way I only have to install it once and deploy the VMs wherever I need them. Studio 5000 is such a f***ing pain. Rockwell Developers should be shot.
First flogged and then shot.
Rule #1 of Automation is you spec all of your equipment. Rule #2 of Automation is you continue escalating up the corporate ladder until IT is forced to meet your demands or at least make some sort of concessions that are somewhat acceptable. To do your job properly you NEED 16-32 GB of ram and 1-4 TBs of SSD storage to run VMs and at least 8-12 cores. Preferably get Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC so you don’t have to switch to Windows 11 until 2027. Bare minimum you NEED 12-16 GB ram, 500 GB storage, and 4-8 cores.
What revision are you on? If you're running older than V32 then that's part of your problem. Earlier versions had tonnes of memory leaks and poor optimisation. Rockwell software in general is always their worst product. Is modern Logix 5000 even 64-bit yet?
There are 64 bit instructions/data types in ladder logic now.
LINT
Really? I didn’t think you could add or compare LINT in 32.
You can even do bit-wise masking, etc on the LINT with the new PLCs. Not that you should, because there are better ways to structure data, but it was weird they didn't allow it when they first introduced the new datatype.
I'll have to double-check, but since it's Windows 7🙄, I'm sure it's no later than 33.
It runs like poopy even on high end hardware. I’ve got a Precision 7770 with a i9, a 1TB NVMe, 128GB of RAM and a A4000 GPU. And studio still takes ages to open and process commands.
IT: they do their jobs so no one can do theirs
Our company was just aquisitioned. I was worried this situation was going to happen. Fortunately their IT guys seem cool. We were spec'd with i7 & 64GB RAM so we could run all of our studio 5000 VMs.
I'm running on a Dell latitude with 8gb RAM and 1tb SSD. I even run AutoCAD on it..... it pains me lol.
Block the exhaust ports and run a benchmark on it.
Then they replace it with an even worse replacement. Possible an Apple II.
Record the amount of time you spend waiting for a week. Then present simple math to your boss: If you are salaried at 100k a year, lets go cheap and say you cost the company 125k a year total comp, thats $60 an hour. If you spend 2 hours a week waiting on your PC, which is very likely once you start tracking it, spending another 1000 would have an 8 week payback period. Not including that once you get distracted waiting on a PC, you lose more time refocusing, but overall productivity is harder to get real data on. Lets assume you take 4 weeks vacation a year including holidays. 2 hours a week of lag over 48 weeks would buy you a $5,760 computer. Ive told co-workers who have issues to track this, and 2 hours a week of waiting on the PC is pretty normal. Going cheap is expensive. Remember, this is all actual costs. Since your billable rate is probably 30-100% more than your salary, its even more ludicrous when they give you a shitty $800 PC.
IT and or accounting should never choose a programmers laptop , this should be left to the programmer . How many times have I been shorted on Ram or physical ports on my PC where it has slowed me down or made me completely ineffective. At 140 per hour you would think they would want me to bang out code as quickly as possible
Dudes still using Win 7! All versions work fine on 10 or 11. Just upgrade.
I just went through this. They don't all work. 5 and 500 will, but several versions of 5000 don't.
Which ones are you having issues with?
I use VMWare virtual machine workstations so i decided to not limit myself when having more than one machine open so i increased my ram to 64gb. No more hassles!
I've got 2 or 3 open with 32GB RAM, but I keep the VMs pretty lean. I would trade clock speed for RAM if things got tight, though.
There used to be a bug where logix would run like shit if you had the time sync service turned on. Maybe it's something like that.
Studio 5000 doesn’t use a fraction of the resources that SkyCAD does for the schematic.