This is a little off topic for this list but has anyone seen National Instruments advertisement for the Compact Fieldpoint Programmable Automation Controller (PAC)? These advertisements have been appearing in many of the process control industry trade magazines over the past six months or so. The advertisement compares the features of NI’s PAC with those of PLC’s and the comparison is absolutely WRONG!!
According to the advertisement, the advantages of the PAC over the PLC include capability for analog input and output, floating point processor, ethernet communications and nonvolatile memory. I work extensively with PLC’s and anyone who uses PLC’s knows that these features have been available in PLC’s for many, many years even on low end models. In my opinion, the advertisement hurts NI’s credibility. As a control systems design engineer, if I wasn’t already sold on NI’s product line, I would very much question the credibility of a company that publishes such incorrect information. What I find most surprising is that the ad doesn’t show any of NI’s real advantages over PLC’s. For example: · PLC’s cannot come close to matching the data acquisition rates of NI’s hardware. · Most PLC’s offer only 12 bit A/D and D/A conversion whereas NI offers 16 bit. · PLC’s have very limited ability to communicate with other types of instruments whereas NI offers a wide range of communication drivers and protocols. This is a significant advantage for enterprise integration projects. · Most PLC’s still require one software application for programming the PLC and a separate application for programming the man-machine interface (MMI). LabVIEW with RT allows you to develop both of these within one application. I apologize if this email is not appropriate for this list. I thought that NI should be made aware of this issue but I wasn't sure who I should talk to. I know that many people at NI read this list and I thought that it might be a good way to get the word out. Stan Kieta REAL Controls, Inc. P.O. Box 193, 125 Wissinger St. Salix, PA 15952 Phone: (814) 487-5195 Cell: (814) 242-2260 FAX: (814) 487-5195 http://www.realcontrols.com
