Shawn discusses the First Generation of Compactlogix Controllers in today’s Automation Tech Talk, Lunchtime Edition: Watch Automation Tech Talk on The Automation Blog: Listen to Automation Tech Talk on The Automation Blog:

Automation Tech Talk Show Notes: Thanks for listening! If you’d like to join the show sometime, don’t hesitate to use the contact us link. Links mentioned in video: – Article: https://theautomationblog.com/compactlogix-gen-1/
– Course: https://theautomationschool.com/courses/015-cpx-l12/ Read the transcript on The Automation Blog: (automatically generated)

Shawn Tierney (Host): Hey everybody. Hope you can hear me. I’m trying something a little bit different here. Welcome to automation tech talk lunchtime edition, and, I hope you guys can hear me. I hope, you can see me because I’ve changed everything around.

But, because I have all the equipment here for my new twenty twenty five courses on the workbench, and I don’t have any of the other studio set up for what I want to cover today, I decided to cover generation one of the CompactLogic. So I’m just gonna look over here. It seems like audio is working. Okay? It seems like the video is okay.

So in any case, feel free to say hi in the chat if you’re watching. But, lots going on here. I just had, three vendors send in, samples for me to look at. Actually, one is a trade show demo from Automation Fair, so I’m looking forward to, covering that. The other is a brand new line of IO.

Very exciting. And then the third are some Ethernet push buttons. So I hope to have more about that. Plus, I have, more boxes of stuff donated to the automation museum. So, just so much to cover in the coming weeks and days.

And, but in any case, one thing I do every day too is work on my courses, not only, answer questions, but also work on my courses. And I’m getting ready to update them all for 2025. And I just wanted to say if you are already enrolled in any of my Compact Logics, whether it’s level one, level one, two, you get the new cost for free, so don’t worry about that. So in any case, today, I wanna talk about, though, is the first generation of CompactLogix because a lot of people have never even seen them, not even know they exist, but have never seen them. And, just some real interesting stuff here.

And, let me first show you with the, overhead cam here. Let’s see if I can do this. Do I still have audio? Yep. Okay.

So, in any case, you can see here, this is the l 30, and I’m actually connected through a serial port. I’m using a USB, a USPS rev three from Rockwell that I bought years and years ago. And, let me see if I can zoom in on that. You can see I don’t have everything wired up for the new courses yet. So, be spending some nights and weekends doing that.

But you can see there, I have one of just my, sample program in there. This is the one I use. If you’re in my VUE course, you’ll be very familiar with this program. But in any case, with all the molding simulators, code in there and whatnot. So but I also wanna get on here.

I’m just gonna stick it off top of the Polysplike, the l 20. And in the description of today’s show, I have an article I wrote years ago that kinda detailed some of these things, but the l 20 was the very first CompactLogix to come out. Now I had sourced its release to late twenty I’m sorry, late two thousand or twenty zero zero in any case. But, but, you know, whether it came out early two thousand one or late, February, you know, that was almost directly after, like, a year after the ControlLogix l one, the 5550, controller. So pretty quick.

And, this, unit came in either a single serial port or dual serial port. Now the, the, l 30 I have written down here is, came out the following year, okay, about a year later. And so if we look at that, I mean, it may have been six months later, but, I have one coming down at, one coming out in February, one coming out in 02/2001. And these were known. I’m trying to get close so you can see the label there.

This one was known as the 5320. See it up there? And this one was and I know it’s hard to see because it’s at a different level there, but maybe it’ll zoom in better if I take it off. 5330. And so we talk a lot about fifty three seventies and fifty three eighties.

Right? But this is where that whole nomenclature, began way back when. And, yeah, so 25 years old, 24 years old. And, there were some interesting things about that. Now first of all, this guy had no removable memory, no SD card, none of that stuff.

It did have a battery in here. Oh, that’s noisy. See the battery in there? And I believe this is the same battery we were using in the slick one hundreds. I’m sorry.

Slick five hundreds, the seventy forty seven b a, but I think it was had a seventeen sixteen maybe a 17, 69 b a one. But I’m not gonna take it out just to see it. I always leave them unplugged because they would just go dead. So screechy. You can see there some of the pinouts on the side of the unit.

And, you know, the one cool thing about them is is kinda like the the original ControlLogix. This particular unit had built in a EEPROM. In other words, there was a flash or EEPROM equivalent soldered to the board, and so you could actually store your program internally. So if the battery died or if you get a lightning strike and a power surge, sometimes that’ll make these guys forget what their program is, then you would have, you still have your program there. Now a lot of times, people would make changes to their program, and they would forget.

They would forget to, to update the, the internal memory. So but, hey. That’s gonna happen with every PLC that has flash or, you know, removal of memory or, you know, built in memory. Now the problem with that was that, you know, OEMs typically like the lower, less expensive version of the controller, like, for instance, CompactLogix versus ControlLogix. And without removable memory, how do you how do you set them an update?

That was one of the big problems with the l 23, but that’s the next generation. We’re not gonna get into that. But still, it was a great it does take a long time to download the serial at nineteen two, which is kinda what everybody defaults to. A serial at ’21, I’ll tell you what. It I was really annoyed because I had to download it to reset some things, and I had to download it again to change some things and so on and so forth.

So, it was like, I actually brought the air conditioner in here because it was getting so hot with the lights on. I’m like, how long are these downloads gonna take? But in any case, in the days of Ethernet, serial just is so hard to go back to, but, it works. And, in any case, so these guys were very interesting. Now the l 20, besides only having a single serial port, it has no isolated ports.

Right? So if you want to take the communications out of that serial port, maybe you wanna do d h 45, you definitely have to go through an AIC plus to May to give you an isolated port because NEC says you can’t have a network that runs to your POC that’s not isolated. Okay? So if this port’s not isolated, then you need an isolator, and the AC plus is the ice isolated link coupler, I think, or something like that. Anyways, so, that was one of the limits of the l 20.

The speed uploading and downloading to it was a limit, and they picked up something from the from the, Micrologist guys, this port reset. Right? And we’ll we’ll take a look at that in a minute. But, this channel zero default button, it wasn’t a toggle. It was a reset.

A reset channel zero settings, it didn’t toggle them. Like, in the Micrologix, it toggles between default and what you had to set at. So if you had to set at d h 45 or a modbus, you press the button, it toggles back to d f one full duplex. You press it again, it goes back. Well, not on this guy.

It kinda, like, erases it. And we’re gonna test that out, but that’s what that’s what the manual says, and that’s been my experience. But in any case, so no removal merit memory, only serial, I e very slow. And then this guy only could do the l 20 can only do eight modules where the l 30 could do 16. L 20 can only do one extra bank, so two banks total.

The l 30 could do three banks. So if you had a very narrow enclosure, and and these are not rated. I I I tell these just to people. I know a lot of proud panel builders are showing their panels on, on, LinkedIn, and, a lot of times when I see them put a product, vertically instead of horizontally, there’s not many Rockwell products you can put vertically. So always check the manual, but I always, like, secretly send them an instant message saying, hey.

You may wanna take that that picture down because you have it mounted incorrectly. So in any case and and most of these products, something like a like VFDs and other products, you get derate them when you mount them vertically. Most of the rockwove’s POCs, you can’t just can’t mount them vertically. They’re just not designed for that because you don’t get the convection airflow. Now, I mean, you could do whatever you want.

It’s a free country. Right? Free world. But if you want a warranty, don’t tell them you’d mount it incorrectly. Right?

So in any case, so that is the l 20 and the l 30. And, I wanna take a look at the, l 30 specifically, when it comes to, defaulting that serial port. Okay? So what I did is, I I uploaded the program. I changed this party.

It was DH45. I changed it to DF1FullDuplex nineteen two. BCC is the default for this line. I know a lot of the products Raquel makes is CRC. And then I changed this guy to DH45.

Let’s go over to the computer and check that out because I’m doing everything live, so I’m hoping you guys are seeing everything okay and you can hear me fine. In any case, alright. So here, you could see I’m in the program, and let’s go to control the properties. And I’ve never tried this live. I’ve never tried to do this live, but let’s go to channel zero.

You can see it’s DH45. Right? So let me go back out here into the field and find my what did I do with it? Okay. It’s over here.

Let’s go ahead and do this live, and let’s change this, channel zero. We’ll press it. There’s no there’s no, notice behind the press it for so long. Just press it. So now let’s go back over to the computer and look at it.

You see it changed. Right? That updated. Now I’m gonna stay here, and I’m gonna press it again. And from what I’ve read, it will not go back to the d h 45, but who knows?

Now I’m running version 13. Probably should tell you that first. That is the latest version this will run. The newest version it will run. And so whenever I have a legacy product like this, I always try to get the latest.

And the 13 was actually a very popular version. There was some real big add ons, I think, in motion, as well in 13, because people think 13 is a unlucky number. K. So I just did it again, and you see it’s not changing back. Right?

It’s not changing back. I’m gonna try it one more time. K. Let me just make sure it’s not because it’s not refreshing. I’ll close it and reopen it.

K. Now look at channel zero. It did go back. So is it making a liar out of us? I don’t know.

Nope. No. It was just reading all the information. So it finally caught up and read from the controller. So, offline, it’s d H 45, but it was took a while to read from the controller.

So that’s a downside of it. Right? And I don’t think having four tasks will be limited to four tasks is a downside. Most of the systems I’ve seen out there, four tasks are fine, but in any case, I do wanna throw that out there. And what else did I wanna talk to you about this guy?

The speed. Oh, well, let’s talk about what replaced it, which was really popular. So, you know, no Ethernet, serial only. You know, the l 20 didn’t even have an isolated serial port. Right?

The l 30, the second port is isolated. You know, the comp the nonremovable memory, you know, all those kind of things. Now they sold this as being able to be upgraded to Ethernet device that and ControlNet. Ethernet device that and d h four eighty five, not ControlNet. But, yeah, that was through, like, an AIC or an ENI or a DNI.

And, yeah, that’s not really DeviceNet, d h 45. Yeah. For sure. That’s a 100% d h 45, but a d n I is really messaging. It just encapsulate encapsulates that, that, d f one packet into a, a device that packet.

So it’s not like you’re, you know, mapping, you know, like a scanner. You’re mapping things things in. Now there is a scanner, seventeen sixty nine device that scanner. I got a few of them here. And, do plan on adding a section on device that in the new course.

Probably that’ll probably be 2026. I do have a device set lecture for $10 if anybody wants to go pick that up and learn about the device set basics. But the hands on just requires so much room that it’s like, I gotta get through all the basic stuff for us. Right? So, in any case, but I I don’t know if this guy could actually support the SDM.

I I have a feeling it can’t. Maybe I can. I don’t know. But, I was so old and obsolete that, that, you know, we never tried by the time the SDN came out. So and I’d love if you guys if I say anything wrong or you know I’m wrong about something, let me know.

But in any case, what replaced this? Right? So this is what I call generation one. Right? And what replaced it?

I mean, I call it generation one because it these two controllers share so much in common. Right? They’re really of the same family. But, the next generation totally is different. Right?

And so if we come out, some of you guys may know this. This product was extremely popular. It’s the l three x, the l 35 e, the l 32 e, l 35 c, l 32 c, and l 31. L 31 was not very popular. The l 31 was was like the l 35, but it it it had two serial ports.

And I know somebody who was using it, and I was very unhappy because of the serial ports. So if you think, and I’m not gonna pull it out of the box. I’ll do it for the course, but you think an l 31 e, an l 31 is like an l 30, like, you know, two serial ports, but has this it’s the same size as the l 35, and it has the compact flash port. Now that was huge. Now I have removable memory, and I have Ethernet built into the controller so much faster.

And I think these guys go up to, I’m gonna say, 16. I could be wrong about that. Do they go all the way up to 20 or just to 16? You know, I don’t remember. But I’m guessing they only go to you know, I think they do go to 20.

Maybe they do. In any I think they do. In any case, I’m trying to convince myself. What do they do? But in any case, these guys were extremely popular.

The ability to have the ether ethernet port plus, you know, making that just makes online edit so smooth. You know, you’re editing so fast. You know, you could online edit these other guys, but it was so slow. In any case and the CompactFlash removable memory, Same battery on the side. You can see here that we have, I don’t know if we can see that from there.

If it says isolated, you can see there isolated. So every serial port was isolated. You know? That was really nice. It had still had the same flaw with the, the reset button for the serial port, but you know what?

In this unit did not have any built in no built in, flash card. You you had to buy, and it did not unlike the fifty three seventies, these did not come with the flash card. You had to buy them, and they were pretty expensive because they were heavy duty industrial. Now some people would say, well, can I just buy one at the store? Absolutely.

Just buy a Compact Flash from the store and use it. But here’s the thing. If this product, you know, costs a million dollars when it’s down, are you really gonna put yourself at jeopardy of use or or your company at jeopardy for losing a million dollars because you want to save $50 on a Compact Flash card? If you wanna roll the dice, go for it, man. It’s a free world.

But, in most cases, if you were gonna leave the compact flash in there, you know, you weren’t in a jam, you would order the the official one from Rockwell, get one with a warranty and a guarantee and, you know, an industrial version. A lot of the cheap comp a lot of cheap memory just does not hold up. You know, same thing with anything cheap. I I bought a lot of cheap stuff over the years. You know?

And, you know, I I say I’m doing it for my students to see if it’ll work or not, but a lot of times I’m penny pinching. Right? And, a lot of times I regret it too. Right? So, I have to go back and buy the the higher level.

One place that is is inexpensive, pilot lights. So I’ve had so much problems with the, hey. You get 10 for $10 and they’re just, you know, you’re you’re screwing the wires on, and then the the brakes. It’s like, yeah. I’m not doing that anymore.

But, in any case, I digress. This is generation two. We’re not gonna talk about that today, but I did wanna just show you what the next generation was. So l 31, l 32, l 35, and l 23, which is a shoebox version of this, has really all the same features and functions except they took the compact flash cut out again. We’re talking about that when we are filming the the, History of Automation podcast this weekend.

I gotta get a copy of that to the guest, my guest hosts, so they can, give me the thumbs up on publishing it, but we had a lot of fun doing that. And, we hope to record another episode. This is all to raise money for the automation museum, so we have a place where we can go and and see all the legacy automation out there, like the stuff I showed you in the first three videos. But in any case, we have another one coming up this Sunday. Jeremy’s gonna be talking about, the history of Rockwell.

He should send me not everything. Right? I mean, the cut the the company the company is, like, over a 100 years old. Right? So not gonna cover the entire history.

You know, five hours later, then we get to 1924. No. That’s not what we’re gonna do in this podcast. But in any case, I think that’s it for today. I gotta eat lunch.

I hope you guys are having a great day. Let me see if anybody commented. Nope. I think most of you are either driving or maybe my video and audio is not going out there, but I do wanna wish you guys all good health and happiness. Again, if you wanna pick up my CompactLogix course, it is, you know, $20.20 prices.

We’re gonna keep those until mid September, and then I have to put the prices up to $20.25. I wish I didn’t, but the bill collector’s chasing me down. So we gotta we gotta start, you know, you know, keeping up with everybody else. Right? All the, inflation.

But in any case, if you do, like, let’s say you pick up level one, you will get the new level one at no charge. So don’t worry about it. The the the cost does not you know, it it was filmed before version 35, ’36, and ’37 were out. So if you’re looking for the for the latest, you’ll you’ll get that when the the new course comes out. But with that, I wanna wish you all good health and happiness.

And until next time, my friends, peace.

If you have any questions about Shawn’s in-person or online courses, please don’t hesitate to setup a time to meet with Shawn via MSTeams, or drop him an email using his contact form here: https://theautomationschool.com/question/

Until next time, Peace ✌️ 

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Shawn M Tierney
Technology Enthusiast & Content Creator

Eliminate commercials and gain access to my weekly full length hands-on, news, and Q&A sessions by becoming a member at The Automation Blog or on YouTube. You'll also find all of my affordable PLC, HMI, and SCADA courses at TheAutomationSchool.com.