August 21, 2025 • 17 mins
Shawn discusses the Third Generation of Compactlogix Controllers in today's Automation Tech Talk, Lunchtime Edition:
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Links mentioned in video:
- Article: https://theautomationblog.com/compactlogix-gen-3/
- Course: https://theautomationschool.com/courses/015-cpx-l12/
Read the transcript on The Automation Blog: (automatically generated)
Shawn Tierney (Host): Hey, everybody. Welcome to Automation Tech Talk, lunchtime edition. I hope you're having a great day. And, I ate my lunch early, so I'm here ready to go. And I just wanna welcome everybody who's joining.
I can see people joining up, and, please feel free to leave comments as you go. And, somebody asked yesterday why I wasn't covering a particular product. I've never heard of that product. So I wanna invite that person to come on the show and tell us all about the product. And I wanna thank everybody who's actually reached out to me about coming on the show.
We had some very interesting guests that are gonna come on and talk about what they're learning and what they're doing. That's all about what this lunchtime show is about, you know, just sharing what we learned. And because I have the kind of disarray in here, I'm going over the generations of CompactLogix. And today, we're gonna look at generation number three. Now you can always watch this if you're not available during lunch.
I know some people can't get to the computer at lunchtime. That's okay. You can always watch the replay. I'm also releasing this as an audio podcast. I've renamed the old automation news roundup news headlines podcast automation tech talk, and, it's also being put on the blog.
And if you're one of those morning readers and you can't watch a video, I'm also putting trying to put every, transcript up there now. It costs me extra to do that, but I'm trying to get those up there. It costs extra to get it, but it's a really good transcript. It's not just like the the captions you get on YouTube. So, not that it's a 100% correct.
It's all AI generated. But in any case, it's nice for those people who wanna read about, what, the video instead of watching the video. Right? In any case, with that said, I hope you are all doing well. I'm just checking my mic, checking my video.
Everything looks looks to be working on this side. Again, if you're seeing not seeing something working, let me know in the chat. Otherwise, I'll just talk the whole time and not know that you can't hear me. So in any case, the first thing I wanna do, though, is let's see if I rearrange this correctly. Yeah.
So I wanted to show you where I wanna try to broadcast from tomorrow. So tomorrow, I'm gonna try to use what I'm gonna call Studio C. So I get this studio set up for, you know, recording my lessons, And so there's not a lot of room on the workbench, and there's a lot of other products I wanna cover besides what's on the workbench here. So that's why I'm, trying to get this set up. I don't know if you can see.
Probably can't. I got a Monoclon PLC on there. And so that will be Studio C for shop for, closet. It's kinda like the you know, when you were a kid, you might had a if you went to a small school, you might had a a cafeteria. This is kinda like the closet slash storage closet slash three d printing area slash studio and, slash tool room, etcetera, etcetera.
So in any case, with that said, also, if you have any questions on what I cover today, if you're enrolled in my course over at the automationschool.com, I did put a link in the description. Please feel free to ask them. I know I probably won't cover this, this new guy as much in the new course as I did in the original course, but don't worry about that.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey, everybody. Welcome to Automation Tech Talk,
lunchtime edition. I hope you're having a great
day. And, I ate my lunch early, so
I'm here ready to go. And I just
wanna welcome everybody who's joining. I can see
people joining up, and, please feel free to
leave comments as you go. And,
somebody asked yesterday why I wasn't covering a
particular product. I've never heard of that product.
(00:22):
So I wanna invite that person to come
on the show and tell us all about
the product. And I wanna thank everybody who's
actually reached out to me about coming on
the show. We had some very interesting guests
that are gonna come on and talk about
what they're learning and what they're doing. That's
all about what this lunchtime show is about,
you know, just sharing what we learned. And
because I have the kind of disarray in
(00:42):
here, I'm going over the generations
of CompactLogix.
And today, we're gonna look at generation number
three. Now you can always watch this if
you're not available during lunch. I know some
people can't get to the computer at lunchtime.
That's okay. You can always watch the replay.
I'm also releasing this as an audio podcast.
I've renamed the old automation news roundup news
headlines
(01:02):
podcast automation tech talk,
and, it's also being put on the blog.
And if you're one of those morning readers
and you can't watch a video, I'm also
putting trying to put every, transcript up there
now. It costs me extra to do that,
but I'm trying to get those up there.
It costs extra to get it, but it's
a really good transcript. It's not just like
the the captions you get on YouTube. So,
(01:23):
not that it's a 100% correct. It's all
AI generated. But in any case, it's nice
for those people who wanna read about,
what, the video instead of watching the video.
Right?
In any case,
with that said, I hope you are all
doing well. I'm just checking my mic, checking
my video. Everything looks looks to be working
on this side. Again, if you're seeing not
seeing something working, let me know in the
(01:43):
chat. Otherwise, I'll just talk the whole time
and not know that you can't hear me.
So in any case, the first thing I
wanna do, though, is let's see if I
rearrange this correctly.
Yeah. So I wanted to show you where
I wanna try to broadcast from tomorrow.
So tomorrow,
I'm gonna try to use what I'm gonna
call Studio C. So I get this studio
set up for, you know, recording my lessons,
(02:06):
And so there's not a lot of room
on the workbench,
and there's a lot of other products I
wanna cover besides what's on the workbench here.
So that's why I'm, trying to get this
set up. I don't know if you can
see. Probably can't.
I got a Monoclon PLC on there. And
so that will be Studio C for shop
for,
closet. It's kinda like the you know, when
you were a kid, you might had a
(02:26):
if you went to a small school, you
might had a a cafeteria.
This is kinda like the closet slash storage
closet slash three d printing area slash
studio
and, slash tool room, etcetera, etcetera.
So in any case, with that said, also,
if you have any questions on what I
cover today,
if you're enrolled in my course over at
(02:48):
the automationschool.com,
I did put a link in the
description. Please feel free to ask them. I
know I probably won't cover this, this new
guy as much in the new course as
I did in the original course, but don't
worry about that. If you have the original
course, you get the new course. And if
you end up buying the new course, you'll
get the original cost. So there's a big
you know, over the years, a lot changes,
and it doesn't seem to make sense to
(03:09):
go back. But, of course, I can always
add lessons. So I had somebody ask me
the other day if I could add a
lesson, I added it. So,
that's what being a full time instructor, that's
makes it easy for me to do. So
in any case, let's go ahead and go
to the overhead cam here, and this is
where I'll need to put the old glasses
on. And we can see
the,
third generation of CompactLogix.
(03:29):
This is the l four, commonly known as
the l four x. This particular one I
picked up, on the secondhand market was a,
l 43.
I, did check with some distributors to see
if they wanted the pot with their demo
cases. They did not.
So I I'm sure they are collecting dust
dust in there in there or sitting at
(03:50):
some customer site in collecting dust. But in
any case, this actually came in two different
flavors. There was an l 43 and an
l 45.
And a lot of people don't know this,
but this is actually
like an l six
in a, in a, CompactLogix
form factor. So and you don't know. A
lot of people never use these, but they
(04:10):
were very powerful,
bringing that,
control CompactLogix
ControlLogix
down to the CompactLogix.
So,
some of the things here, let's just look
at the, look at the unit first physically.
This is the only CompactLogix
that had
a left hand bust or left side bust,
and we'll talk about that all more in
(04:31):
a minute. But the right side, we still
used our regular old 1769.
Okay? And then in the front, for whatever
reason, they put a cover over the CompactFlash
slot.
Okay? But this is a good cover. It
like, it's not like the l 71. The
first l 71 I got or l seven
I got, I broke the latch because I
was pushing down so hard. My finger just
kept going and broke the, and broke the
(04:53):
little tab. So I actually took it off
my l seven I have here for the
training room because, I don't want anybody to
break it.
But in any case, this one's good. This
is not like that. This is very, very
good, easy to open and close. Don't know
why they put it in there. Maybe they
had to meet some kind of spec, and
it was sticking out farther than
what it does on the, the ones we
looked at yesterday. But in any case, and
(05:14):
just like the l three x that we
looked at yesterday, gen two,
these units had a, serial port.
The key, they changed the key. Not a
fan of this. So the new key they
had on these guys, and I I don't
have one out. Probably should've got one out,
but it's like a hollow key. It's a
plastic hollow key. And so you may if
anybody knows me, knows I keep a PLC
(05:36):
five and a and a six five hundred
ControlLogix,
key on CompactLogix
key on my keychain. And the reason is
because, you know, I've driven someplace for three
or four hours just to get there to
see the PLCs in a hot run. And
I'm like, do you guys have any PLC
keys here? And they were like, no. They're
like, well, you just wasted four hours. Now
eight hours because I gotta drive back home
(05:57):
of my life because you don't have a
key. I mean, that's like saying,
you know anyways, help us with a computer,
and you don't have a computer. Right? It's,
like, ridiculous.
Anyhow, so that would that memory was buried
pretty deep there.
In any case, these keys, I had one
on my key chain for a while, but
it broke. It's just it was a cheap
plastic, and it was hollow, and it broke.
(06:17):
And so was not a fan of the
key. Again, if you just leave the key
in there,
it's not a problem. But in any case,
I I again, I don't know why they
changed to that key, but I would have
preferred if they would have stayed with the
same key. I know tolerances would have been
a little tight, but maybe they could have
moved it over. I don't
know. But in any case, that key doesn't
return in any other product that I know
of. So that's good. And I wanna say
(06:39):
hi to the folks who are saying hi
in the chat. Hi, guys.
Alright. So what else do we wanna talk
about this? This did have a default comms
button. Now we talked about how with the,
first generation,
that default comms button, right, it just erased,
what was there, replaced it with the defaults,
and we actually tested it. Right? And so
(07:00):
that doesn't change here, but what does change,
because this does not have a battery. Woo
hoo. This doesn't have a battery.
That you can use that default comms button
to reset the memory. Right? So if you
hold it down while you're powering up, you
reset the memory. Yeah. So that's cool because,
like, with the other, controllers, we just took
the battery out and waited,
and, we lose,
(07:20):
sometimes you do as this, as capacity you
would short. But in any
case,
with this guy, since there's no battery, thank
goodness. And that was a big problem with
the l six. Now this is based on
the l six. Right? But the l six,
you know, they that battery they were using
in the l six was designed for the
l one, right, which didn't have a lot
(07:41):
of memory compared to the l six. When
you get to the l six and, you
know, the memory is four or five, ten,
20 times bigger, a 100 times bigger, the
battery wasn't lasting very long, maybe a couple
of weeks. And that's not enough if you
ship it a machine overseas. Right? So,
you know, of course, people would not put
the contact flash card in, and then then
they would have a problem. They'd have a
machine with no with no program.
(08:03):
So in any case, with the l four,
what they did they decided to do was,
do something very similar to the Micrologix 1,000.
If you remember the Micrologix 1,000 that came
out in '94,
it didn't have a battery because it had
a built in
EEPROM slash flash memory on the circuit board,
what we call nonvolatile
memory. And when you power it off, a
(08:24):
capacitor just held the memory long enough so
it could transfer over to nonvolatile.
Never had to worry about an EEPROM. Never
had to worry about,
a battery.
And so that's what they did with this
unit, and they added added it to the
series b. That's what they did with the
series b l sixes. But in any case,
that was that was a big deal with
this guy. And, let's go ahead and talk
(08:45):
about the IO here. And I also have
the article linked that I wrote, quite a
bit back, back, six years ago over at
the automationblog.com
where I cover a lot of this stuff.
But let's go back to the overhead cam.
Okay. Great. And let's
take a look at, I wanna zoom out
just a little bit.
Okay. And let's take a look at what
(09:07):
we could put on the left hand side.
Okay? So the right hand side was pretty
much the same as all the other CompactLogix,
but what was new was what we could
put on the left hand side. Now first
of all, we always had a power supply.
Look at the size of that guy. So
much bigger than the regular PA two or
PA four.
But in any case,
Yeah. So we always had to have a
power supply. Now one thing you can need
(09:28):
to know is that these latches here. Right?
And I always forget this.
But these are latched in by the,
DIN rail clips. Okay? So these are not
just DIN rail clips like they are in
the rest of the products. These actually also
latch in
those, those side pieces. So,
k, so these right here. Okay? So you
gotta keep that in mind. I recently had,
(09:49):
one of my students replacing one of these
at a big name company.
And,
actually, he just added
a Cognex
camera or BACo reader to the existing out
four. Didn't even take it out, which is
cool that you can go back. And I
think he was using 18. He was able
to go ahead and add that functionality, the
AOI, to version 18 and get the system
(10:10):
up and running without replacing the PLC.
PAC. Sorry, Rockwell.
In any case
so, yeah, big honking. So this is always
the leftmost thing. I know with the other
compacts, you could put, you know, the power
supply up to four modules typically away from
the controller.
But on this guy,
yeah, he has to be on all the
way on the left. He's big too, but
(10:31):
that's because he has to power some stuff.
Right? And so we had a choice. Now
with the l 43,
you could have,
only two modules to the left. Okay? With
the l 45, you get a four modules,
but here's the problem with that.
You still only have two of each type
of module.
So there were two types of modules. There
were Circos motion control modules
(10:53):
or
there were communication modules.
And a lot of people wanted to put
in, like, four Ethernet or two control net
and two Ethernet. Can't do that. Right? So
even if you had an l 45 and
you had four available slots here,
you can only have two communication and two
motion, and that was Circos. I have not
I don't have any Circos motion, so I
(11:14):
I didn't look to buy any Circos cards.
But
what I do have is Ethernet.
So sometimes people would use this as a
bridge, and they put two ethernets in.
Okay?
Because I have an l 43. I only
can have two, or
in some cases, they would put control net
in. Now the control net did come in
both the standard one single port and the
redundant port. I have a single port here.
(11:36):
Then you can see that NAP
network access port that is not an Ethernet
port. That is not a d h 45
port. So,
just be aware of that. And then, you
know, there you go. So that that is
what you could do. Now these
Ethernet modules were,
they handle lots of distributed IO. Right? So
(11:56):
a lot of times, you would see people
go to this, and you could tell these
are closed because I can't slide them together.
Come on, boys. Open up.
K. Here we go.
And now let's try that again.
Okay.
So a lot of times, people would do
this because they had a lot of distributed
IO, but they wanted to save. They don't
wanna get the big expensive chassis and power
(12:17):
supplied.
It's a lot bigger too. So, they could
have two modules. They could talk to a
bunch of distributed IO
and, still have some local seventeen sixty nine
IO. So that that was pretty pretty popular.
I don't know if it was a technical
reason why they didn't let you do four
Ethernet modules or if it was a marketing
slash commercial
(12:38):
decision because they didn't wanna eat into
the,
ControlLogix. But
I think it kinda made the life of
this a little little,
shorter because,
you know, it couldn't do much bigger systems.
Right? So I don't know. I I it's
a great system, but it did it ended
a life, pretty quick. And we'll look at
tomorrow, the fifty three seventy series, which was
(12:59):
pretty which was extremely popular, very well launched
in my opinion. Probably one of the best
product launches I've ever seen.
And, but in any case so now here
on the right hand side, we could put
a device net module,
because I always check the book to see
if something's compatible or not because who knows?
My memory. You know, I'm getting older. Right?
And we could have some, compact. These are
(13:20):
some of the,
one and a half,
slot modules I picked up. This is, I
think, a 32 module.
Just digital in 32 points.
K.
And
over here, we have,
what's this guy? Relay? Yes. 16 relays.
K.
And, of course, you always need your end
(13:41):
cap.
So that is
the,
the third generation of CompactLogix. Now let's take
a look at the article, see if what
else I missed here.
Again, you'll see a link there in the
in the description. Again, the same key, the
same, no modem cable we talked about earlier
in the week, same c p three or
just a regular no modem cable.
(14:03):
We talked about the mode switch. We talked
about the, communication reset. Talk about no battery.
That was good.
What else do we have? We talked about
the module limitation.
The, there's also an IO limitation. I'll get
to that in a minute.
Let's see here.
So
with the l 43, you could only do
(14:24):
four axes,
four position axes,
and up to 16
local IO modules and up to two banks.
The l 45
supported 30 modules, local IO modules up into
up to three banks.
And, while the l 43 only had two
meg, the l 45 had three meg,
(14:44):
and the l 45
supported
eight
position axes across two surplus modules.
K?
There was also an EWEB. I don't think
either of these are EWEBs.
I guess I'd just assume that neither of
them were.
Let's see. EMBT.
(15:10):
EMBT. Yeah. So they're both EMBTs.
So
can I show can I share my, screen
here?
No. I don't have that over there.
Alright. Well, in any case, let me just
go through the article here. You guys have
a link in the description.
And no. I think I covered everything. So
let's go back
to
(15:31):
we're already on full screen. So, yeah, so
that's everything I wanted to cover about the
l 43
or the
third generation of CompactLogix.
Now the fourth generation will cover tomorrow. The
fifty three seventy is pretty awesome.
I remember one of that launch, and it
was just a great,
great product launch because they came out with
all these new versions, and they come out
(15:52):
with them all at the same time, and
they had truly small ones. It's not like
the l 23. They had truly small units.
Used to be affordable, you know, with inflation.
We talked about that earlier. I think they're
up to $2,400
now when they used to be, like, a,
you know, $1,100.
So $1,200.
So in any case, they used to have
starter kits too, which were awesome.
Excuse me. But the the fourth generation, I
(16:13):
think most of you are familiar with, and,
of course, the fifth generation will cover on
the last day. But because I have those
things already installed, I'll probably,
cover those a different way from the other
studio. But with that, let me see if
any questions have come in. I'm not seeing
any questions from you guys in the field.
Again, if you have a if you're in
my courses, you have any questions on anything
(16:33):
CompactLogix related, just post it there.
Also, you'll notice there's a lot of new
lessons in the existing CompactLogix
course. The new course is also being filmed
and updated,
but the existing course has a lot of,
a lot of, updates in it as well
and more coming. So as I'm filming the
new course, I'm updating the existing course, not
everything, but, you know, things that are common
(16:54):
and, things that I felt like need to
be updated, like,
like, lesson one zero two on, like, what
the software costs and, you know, what simulators
are available and whatnot.
So with that, I don't have anything else
on my list to cover. Again, if you
know anybody who needs CompactLogix training, please mention
the automationschool.com.
That's what pays the bills and keeps the
lights on. So if you know everybody needs
(17:15):
some training,
We will have to update the pricing in
mid September due to inflation
held off as long as I can. Also,
I have some exciting things coming. I'm setting
up a trade show automation fee, a trade
show demo here in the office later today,
from a major company. Can't wait to bring
that video to you.
We got some great,
podcasts already recorded. We got some new ones
(17:36):
coming. I had some an Ethernet push button,
demo I wanna show you, which is awesome
from a major vendor. Also hope to get
them on the podcast. So lots of things
in the works behind the scenes, but for
now, I'm gonna leave it there. I wanna
wish you all
good health health and happiness. I hope hope
you have a great day. I hope I
can start talking with off.
Mess it up. And until next time, my
(17:56):
friends,
peace.
Hey, everybody. Welcome to Automation Tech Talk,
lunchtime edition. I hope you're having a great
day. And, I ate my lunch early, so
I'm here ready to go. And I just
wanna welcome everybody who's joining. I can see
people joining up, and, please feel free to
leave comments as you go. And,
somebody asked yesterday why I wasn't covering a
particular product. I've never heard of that product.
(00:22):
So I wanna invite that person to come
on the show and tell us all about
the product. And I wanna thank everybody who's
actually reached out to me about coming on
the show. We had some very interesting guests
that are gonna come on and talk about
what they're learning and what they're doing. That's
all about what this lunchtime show is about,
you know, just sharing what we learned. And
because I have the kind of disarray in
(00:42):
here, I'm going over the generations
of CompactLogix.
And today, we're gonna look at generation number
three. Now you can always watch this if
you're not available during lunch. I know some
people can't get to the computer at lunchtime.
That's okay. You can always watch the replay.
I'm also releasing this as an audio podcast.
I've renamed the old automation news roundup news
headlines
(01:02):
podcast automation tech talk,
and, it's also being put on the blog.
And if you're one of those morning readers
and you can't watch a video, I'm also
putting trying to put every, transcript up there
now. It costs me extra to do that,
but I'm trying to get those up there.
It costs extra to get it, but it's
a really good transcript. It's not just like
the the captions you get on YouTube. So,
(01:23):
not that it's a 100% correct. It's all
AI generated. But in any case, it's nice
for those people who wanna read about,
what, the video instead of watching the video.
Right?
In any case,
with that said, I hope you are all
doing well. I'm just checking my mic, checking
my video. Everything looks looks to be working
on this side. Again, if you're seeing not
seeing something working, let me know in the
(01:43):
chat. Otherwise, I'll just talk the whole time
and not know that you can't hear me.
So in any case, the first thing I
wanna do, though, is let's see if I
rearrange this correctly.
Yeah. So I wanted to show you where
I wanna try to broadcast from tomorrow.
So tomorrow,
I'm gonna try to use what I'm gonna
call Studio C. So I get this studio
set up for, you know, recording my lessons,
(02:06):
And so there's not a lot of room
on the workbench,
and there's a lot of other products I
wanna cover besides what's on the workbench here.
So that's why I'm, trying to get this
set up. I don't know if you can
see. Probably can't.
I got a Monoclon PLC on there. And
so that will be Studio C for shop
for,
closet. It's kinda like the you know, when
you were a kid, you might had a
(02:26):
if you went to a small school, you
might had a a cafeteria.
This is kinda like the closet slash storage
closet slash three d printing area slash
studio
and, slash tool room, etcetera, etcetera.
So in any case, with that said, also,
if you have any questions on what I
cover today,
if you're enrolled in my course over at
(02:48):
the automationschool.com,
I did put a link in the
description. Please feel free to ask them. I
know I probably won't cover this, this new
guy as much in the new course as
I did in the original course, but don't
worry about that. If you have the original
course, you get the new course. And if
you end up buying the new course, you'll
get the original cost. So there's a big
you know, over the years, a lot changes,
and it doesn't seem to make sense to
(03:09):
go back. But, of course, I can always
add lessons. So I had somebody ask me
the other day if I could add a
lesson, I added it. So,
that's what being a full time instructor, that's
makes it easy for me to do. So
in any case, let's go ahead and go
to the overhead cam here, and this is
where I'll need to put the old glasses
on. And we can see
the,
third generation of CompactLogix.
(03:29):
This is the l four, commonly known as
the l four x. This particular one I
picked up, on the secondhand market was a,
l 43.
I, did check with some distributors to see
if they wanted the pot with their demo
cases. They did not.
So I I'm sure they are collecting dust
dust in there in there or sitting at
(03:50):
some customer site in collecting dust. But in
any case, this actually came in two different
flavors. There was an l 43 and an
l 45.
And a lot of people don't know this,
but this is actually
like an l six
in a, in a, CompactLogix
form factor. So and you don't know. A
lot of people never use these, but they
(04:10):
were very powerful,
bringing that,
control CompactLogix
ControlLogix
down to the CompactLogix.
So,
some of the things here, let's just look
at the, look at the unit first physically.
This is the only CompactLogix
that had
a left hand bust or left side bust,
and we'll talk about that all more in
(04:31):
a minute. But the right side, we still
used our regular old 1769.
Okay? And then in the front, for whatever
reason, they put a cover over the CompactFlash
slot.
Okay? But this is a good cover. It
like, it's not like the l 71. The
first l 71 I got or l seven
I got, I broke the latch because I
was pushing down so hard. My finger just
kept going and broke the, and broke the
(04:53):
little tab. So I actually took it off
my l seven I have here for the
training room because, I don't want anybody to
break it.
But in any case, this one's good. This
is not like that. This is very, very
good, easy to open and close. Don't know
why they put it in there. Maybe they
had to meet some kind of spec, and
it was sticking out farther than
what it does on the, the ones we
looked at yesterday. But in any case, and
(05:14):
just like the l three x that we
looked at yesterday, gen two,
these units had a, serial port.
The key, they changed the key. Not a
fan of this. So the new key they
had on these guys, and I I don't
have one out. Probably should've got one out,
but it's like a hollow key. It's a
plastic hollow key. And so you may if
anybody knows me, knows I keep a PLC
(05:36):
five and a and a six five hundred
ControlLogix,
key on CompactLogix
key on my keychain. And the reason is
because, you know, I've driven someplace for three
or four hours just to get there to
see the PLCs in a hot run. And
I'm like, do you guys have any PLC
keys here? And they were like, no. They're
like, well, you just wasted four hours. Now
eight hours because I gotta drive back home
(05:57):
of my life because you don't have a
key. I mean, that's like saying,
you know anyways, help us with a computer,
and you don't have a computer. Right? It's,
like, ridiculous.
Anyhow, so that would that memory was buried
pretty deep there.
In any case, these keys, I had one
on my key chain for a while, but
it broke. It's just it was a cheap
plastic, and it was hollow, and it broke.
(06:17):
And so was not a fan of the
key. Again, if you just leave the key
in there,
it's not a problem. But in any case,
I I again, I don't know why they
changed to that key, but I would have
preferred if they would have stayed with the
same key. I know tolerances would have been
a little tight, but maybe they could have
moved it over. I don't
know. But in any case, that key doesn't
return in any other product that I know
of. So that's good. And I wanna say
(06:39):
hi to the folks who are saying hi
in the chat. Hi, guys.
Alright. So what else do we wanna talk
about this? This did have a default comms
button. Now we talked about how with the,
first generation,
that default comms button, right, it just erased,
what was there, replaced it with the defaults,
and we actually tested it. Right? And so
(07:00):
that doesn't change here, but what does change,
because this does not have a battery. Woo
hoo. This doesn't have a battery.
That you can use that default comms button
to reset the memory. Right? So if you
hold it down while you're powering up, you
reset the memory. Yeah. So that's cool because,
like, with the other, controllers, we just took
the battery out and waited,
and, we lose,
(07:20):
sometimes you do as this, as capacity you
would short. But in any
case,
with this guy, since there's no battery, thank
goodness. And that was a big problem with
the l six. Now this is based on
the l six. Right? But the l six,
you know, they that battery they were using
in the l six was designed for the
l one, right, which didn't have a lot
(07:41):
of memory compared to the l six. When
you get to the l six and, you
know, the memory is four or five, ten,
20 times bigger, a 100 times bigger, the
battery wasn't lasting very long, maybe a couple
of weeks. And that's not enough if you
ship it a machine overseas. Right? So,
you know, of course, people would not put
the contact flash card in, and then then
they would have a problem. They'd have a
machine with no with no program.
(08:03):
So in any case, with the l four,
what they did they decided to do was,
do something very similar to the Micrologix 1,000.
If you remember the Micrologix 1,000 that came
out in '94,
it didn't have a battery because it had
a built in
EEPROM slash flash memory on the circuit board,
what we call nonvolatile
memory. And when you power it off, a
(08:24):
capacitor just held the memory long enough so
it could transfer over to nonvolatile.
Never had to worry about an EEPROM. Never
had to worry about,
a battery.
And so that's what they did with this
unit, and they added added it to the
series b. That's what they did with the
series b l sixes. But in any case,
that was that was a big deal with
this guy. And, let's go ahead and talk
(08:45):
about the IO here. And I also have
the article linked that I wrote, quite a
bit back, back, six years ago over at
the automationblog.com
where I cover a lot of this stuff.
But let's go back to the overhead cam.
Okay. Great. And let's
take a look at, I wanna zoom out
just a little bit.
Okay. And let's take a look at what
(09:07):
we could put on the left hand side.
Okay? So the right hand side was pretty
much the same as all the other CompactLogix,
but what was new was what we could
put on the left hand side. Now first
of all, we always had a power supply.
Look at the size of that guy. So
much bigger than the regular PA two or
PA four.
But in any case,
Yeah. So we always had to have a
power supply. Now one thing you can need
(09:28):
to know is that these latches here. Right?
And I always forget this.
But these are latched in by the,
DIN rail clips. Okay? So these are not
just DIN rail clips like they are in
the rest of the products. These actually also
latch in
those, those side pieces. So,
k, so these right here. Okay? So you
gotta keep that in mind. I recently had,
(09:49):
one of my students replacing one of these
at a big name company.
And,
actually, he just added
a Cognex
camera or BACo reader to the existing out
four. Didn't even take it out, which is
cool that you can go back. And I
think he was using 18. He was able
to go ahead and add that functionality, the
AOI, to version 18 and get the system
(10:10):
up and running without replacing the PLC.
PAC. Sorry, Rockwell.
In any case
so, yeah, big honking. So this is always
the leftmost thing. I know with the other
compacts, you could put, you know, the power
supply up to four modules typically away from
the controller.
But on this guy,
yeah, he has to be on all the
way on the left. He's big too, but
(10:31):
that's because he has to power some stuff.
Right? And so we had a choice. Now
with the l 43,
you could have,
only two modules to the left. Okay? With
the l 45, you get a four modules,
but here's the problem with that.
You still only have two of each type
of module.
So there were two types of modules. There
were Circos motion control modules
(10:53):
or
there were communication modules.
And a lot of people wanted to put
in, like, four Ethernet or two control net
and two Ethernet. Can't do that. Right? So
even if you had an l 45 and
you had four available slots here,
you can only have two communication and two
motion, and that was Circos. I have not
I don't have any Circos motion, so I
(11:14):
I didn't look to buy any Circos cards.
But
what I do have is Ethernet.
So sometimes people would use this as a
bridge, and they put two ethernets in.
Okay?
Because I have an l 43. I only
can have two, or
in some cases, they would put control net
in. Now the control net did come in
both the standard one single port and the
redundant port. I have a single port here.
(11:36):
Then you can see that NAP
network access port that is not an Ethernet
port. That is not a d h 45
port. So,
just be aware of that. And then, you
know, there you go. So that that is
what you could do. Now these
Ethernet modules were,
they handle lots of distributed IO. Right? So
(11:56):
a lot of times, you would see people
go to this, and you could tell these
are closed because I can't slide them together.
Come on, boys. Open up.
K. Here we go.
And now let's try that again.
Okay.
So a lot of times, people would do
this because they had a lot of distributed
IO, but they wanted to save. They don't
wanna get the big expensive chassis and power
(12:17):
supplied.
It's a lot bigger too. So, they could
have two modules. They could talk to a
bunch of distributed IO
and, still have some local seventeen sixty nine
IO. So that that was pretty pretty popular.
I don't know if it was a technical
reason why they didn't let you do four
Ethernet modules or if it was a marketing
slash commercial
(12:38):
decision because they didn't wanna eat into
the,
ControlLogix. But
I think it kinda made the life of
this a little little,
shorter because,
you know, it couldn't do much bigger systems.
Right? So I don't know. I I it's
a great system, but it did it ended
a life, pretty quick. And we'll look at
tomorrow, the fifty three seventy series, which was
(12:59):
pretty which was extremely popular, very well launched
in my opinion. Probably one of the best
product launches I've ever seen.
And, but in any case so now here
on the right hand side, we could put
a device net module,
because I always check the book to see
if something's compatible or not because who knows?
My memory. You know, I'm getting older. Right?
And we could have some, compact. These are
(13:20):
some of the,
one and a half,
slot modules I picked up. This is, I
think, a 32 module.
Just digital in 32 points.
K.
And
over here, we have,
what's this guy? Relay? Yes. 16 relays.
K.
And, of course, you always need your end
(13:41):
cap.
So that is
the,
the third generation of CompactLogix. Now let's take
a look at the article, see if what
else I missed here.
Again, you'll see a link there in the
in the description. Again, the same key, the
same, no modem cable we talked about earlier
in the week, same c p three or
just a regular no modem cable.
(14:03):
We talked about the mode switch. We talked
about the, communication reset. Talk about no battery.
That was good.
What else do we have? We talked about
the module limitation.
The, there's also an IO limitation. I'll get
to that in a minute.
Let's see here.
So
with the l 43, you could only do
(14:24):
four axes,
four position axes,
and up to 16
local IO modules and up to two banks.
The l 45
supported 30 modules, local IO modules up into
up to three banks.
And, while the l 43 only had two
meg, the l 45 had three meg,
(14:44):
and the l 45
supported
eight
position axes across two surplus modules.
K?
There was also an EWEB. I don't think
either of these are EWEBs.
I guess I'd just assume that neither of
them were.
Let's see. EMBT.
(15:10):
EMBT. Yeah. So they're both EMBTs.
So
can I show can I share my, screen
here?
No. I don't have that over there.
Alright. Well, in any case, let me just
go through the article here. You guys have
a link in the description.
And no. I think I covered everything. So
let's go back
to
(15:31):
we're already on full screen. So, yeah, so
that's everything I wanted to cover about the
l 43
or the
third generation of CompactLogix.
Now the fourth generation will cover tomorrow. The
fifty three seventy is pretty awesome.
I remember one of that launch, and it
was just a great,
great product launch because they came out with
all these new versions, and they come out
(15:52):
with them all at the same time, and
they had truly small ones. It's not like
the l 23. They had truly small units.
Used to be affordable, you know, with inflation.
We talked about that earlier. I think they're
up to $2,400
now when they used to be, like, a,
you know, $1,100.
So $1,200.
So in any case, they used to have
starter kits too, which were awesome.
Excuse me. But the the fourth generation, I
(16:13):
think most of you are familiar with, and,
of course, the fifth generation will cover on
the last day. But because I have those
things already installed, I'll probably,
cover those a different way from the other
studio. But with that, let me see if
any questions have come in. I'm not seeing
any questions from you guys in the field.
Again, if you have a if you're in
my courses, you have any questions on anything
(16:33):
CompactLogix related, just post it there.
Also, you'll notice there's a lot of new
lessons in the existing CompactLogix
course. The new course is also being filmed
and updated,
but the existing course has a lot of,
a lot of, updates in it as well
and more coming. So as I'm filming the
new course, I'm updating the existing course, not
everything, but, you know, things that are common
(16:54):
and, things that I felt like need to
be updated, like,
like, lesson one zero two on, like, what
the software costs and, you know, what simulators
are available and whatnot.
So with that, I don't have anything else
on my list to cover. Again, if you
know anybody who needs CompactLogix training, please mention
the automationschool.com.
That's what pays the bills and keeps the
lights on. So if you know everybody needs
(17:15):
some training,
We will have to update the pricing in
mid September due to inflation
held off as long as I can. Also,
I have some exciting things coming. I'm setting
up a trade show automation fee, a trade
show demo here in the office later today,
from a major company. Can't wait to bring
that video to you.
We got some great,
podcasts already recorded. We got some new ones
(17:36):
coming. I had some an Ethernet push button,
demo I wanna show you, which is awesome
from a major vendor. Also hope to get
them on the podcast. So lots of things
in the works behind the scenes, but for
now, I'm gonna leave it there. I wanna
wish you all
good health health and happiness. I hope hope
you have a great day. I hope I
can start talking with off.
Mess it up. And until next time, my
(17:56):
friends,
peace.
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