Relation of continuity times of PAC technology in the market

good day, we have control systems LMC4 (mystic) and we are doing the update study. We already have a proposal from an opto 22 provider here in Colombia, but I would like to know where I can find a relationship of continuity times of the PAC technology in the market. It is necessary to have the projection of said technology.

thank you very much.

Not sure I (we) understand the term “continuity times” of your statement. Also, “projection of said technology”?

The migration of the LCM4 is relatively straight forward. Replace with S1’s and if you have the money in the project, you’re better off replacing all the brains with EB1’s and EB2’s. However, that all depends on what brains exists and how much rewire you intend to do. The old Mystic brains are a mixed bag so there are choices for each scenario, and the B3000 are very simple, just replace the rack and brain with EB1/EB2’s.

I assume your local Opto22 provider has already gone over all that.

It is also important to determine if your software used external instructions. Even though PAC Control gives you ways to replace external instructions with better options
it is something to consider.

Hi Barrett,
yes, I refer to the projection of this technology in this case the PAC systems (controller SNAP-PAC-S2, SNAP-PAC-EB1-FM, modules of inputs and outputs SNAP-PAC) would like to know if Opto 22 has this projection that allows us to see where this technology is headed or to know for how long these components will be available in the market.

Well, I don’t know what Opto22 will commit to, however, I tend to look at what the past performance has been to get an idea of what it will be. In Opto22’s case, the SNAP platform (that is to say the snap racks and snap modules that are still the current platform for modules, came out in 1995. That makes the snap platform 23 years old, and they will be around for probably another 15-20. They are right now just coming out with the Epic platform. The previous module platform was Mystic which I believe was introduced around 1990 and that platform although seceded by Snap in 1995, most of that platform (there were a number of different type racks) was sold and supported until just the past 5 years. Some of it still is sold and supported. Also, Opto22 still supports and sells the racks and modules for some of the classic IO stuff and most of the brains have been redesigned for Ethernet with plug and play replacement. The classic stuff is around 38 years old.
No one supports their stuff longer. With most other PLC manufacturers, you’re luck to get 10 years.
In addition, the current and most recent controllers, both support connect to and commands to the oldest platform Opto22 has. So if I need to control some classic racks, these controllers will connect and talk to them via RS485.

Just for clarification, the Optomux commands for the oldest boards are not built in to any of the current controllers. There used to be an integration kit Opto had for that, but is has been pulled from the site. (I have a copy of the kit if anyone needs it.) These old Optomux-only brains are not sold anymore, the replacements (E1/E2) support Optomux and OptoMMP and are a drop in replacement most of the time, but you would have to run ethernet to use OptoMMP. The only boards that I know of where they don’t drop in are the ones where the brain is integrated on the rack along with a power supply, so the rack and power supply would have to be replaced as well if you wanted to upgrade these to OptoMMP or had to replace them with an E1/E2 due to failure.

It seems the general rule for Opto is as long as they can still get the underlying parts from their suppliers (CPUs, flash chips, etc), they will continue to manufacture the part.

In terms of availability and reliability, one of my customers that has old Optomux boards has about 30 of them - installed almost 30 years ago. Every single one of them we can get some sort of replacement for without having to change any programming. The old stuff is bullet proof though and we have NEVER had to replace anything on any of them due to failure.

I had a customer that gave me a box of G1 digital modules that were “bad” - about 100 modules in this box that their techs changed out because they were broke :roll_eyes:. I took them back to my test bench and they all worked except one relay module that I suspect they plugged into a PWM/TPO output and tortured it- as I found other relay modules installed at the site that way too - always fun to open a control panel and here constant clicking :slight_smile:

On the PAC stuff, I’ve had a PAC S2 that failed after about 8 years of service. I have also had three SNAP module failures: 2 ICTD-8s and an AIV (out of hundreds of installed units though). The modules were replaced under warranty, the S2 we had to buy a new one - hopefully Opto will have a suitable replacement for the S2 when it reaches retirement as we use 3 of the 4 RS-485 ports on it and USB dongles will never be a suitable replacement.

Well I knew that it was an SDK kit, but in the past you could switch to B100/B200, then came E1 and E2. I personally would not attempt the SDK kit for that unless necessary, better off upgrading the boards. I agree, the old boards were absolutely bullet proof, I opened a control panel in a well house once, and it was half full of water which poured out at me. Then I let the B1/B2 boards dry out for couple of days, and fired them back up.
Yah, anytime someone tells me those modules are bad, I chuckle. I rarely find those to be bad unless they connected 120 vac to a DC input module or something like that.
What most people don’t know is if the serial cable you ran has 2 twisted pair and the wire size is small, say 20ga or less, and you’re not running over say 200-300 feet, you can connect up some RJ45 and let’r rip with Ethernet. Not the best practice but it will work if the wire pull is a major problem. You may or may not have to set the switches to 10 meg.
I agree on S2, I have installed a few of those and they will run a lot of stuff if the serial line is properly installed.