Everything wrong with PLC IDE (that I could think of in < 10 mins)

Development Tools PLC IDE
1

I have tried to (unsuccessfully) use this piece of garbage for a whole day. Here is everything that makes this a disgrace in software development:

  1. If I delete a variable and try to add a var with the same name elsewhere I get told this var already exists. This shows a complete lack of QA
  2. There are 0 code suggestions, what kind of IDE has no code suggestions when half the stuff I am writing is completely new to me?? You can just give me instructions to manually program this "hardware" via serial bus and I might take less time

How are you guys selling hardware which is software dependent with a software THIS BAD? Do you people have no shame?

2

I have not had an experience this bad since I tried to use a company's internal tool which was created by 2 interns using chat got, just for reference

3

I have not worked with this IDE so I am not even a noob on this.

@akshaangarg
Having remarks is good, and these are most valued if they are constructive.
So please

Can you spend 10 minutes and make a list of all things that are good?
or spend 10 minutes and propose improvements how things should be done.

4

Sure,
All things that are good:
Hardware has sleek design and works well. Gives you a lot of confidence (which happens to be misplaced).
Seems like a good option for someone who is operating a small business and is versed with c++ (which again is misplaced)
That's about it in terms of good things

How to make it better
Do SW Q&A so that you know before taking a product if the supporting SW actually works or not. Right now, adding variables is literal hell on earth.

5

This is supposed to be an industrial piece of technology. If your SW is not working properly, and it harms somebody in the factory where the automation is taking place will you take responsibility for that?
This product is released and sold. We are not in the "Can you spend 10 minutes and make a list of all things that are good?
or spend 10 minutes and propose improvements how things should be done." phase. We are way past that, this should be a finished product. This is not a video game where you can push bug fixes and expect people to be happy. My business is going to face delays because of this trash piece of tech

6

Is it true that PLC IDE is not open source and requires activating a license to use?

7

I did not know it is a paid product, I supposed the PLC IDE was open source too.
That puts your reaction / remarks in a different light.
(as said, not even a noob in this product)

Thanks for taking time to mention some positive points too.

8

It does utilize the open source Arduino CLI tool, but the Arduino PLC IDE application itself is not open source.

If you are using it with the Arduino Opta, you don't need to do any license activation as this is included with the hardware:

https://docs.arduino.cc/software/plc-ide/tutorials/plc-ide-setup-license/#6-license-activation-with-pre-licensed-products-opta

If you are instead using it with the Portenta Machine Control, then you do need to purchase a key for Arduino PLC IDE:

9

I agree with you: the PLC IDE is very bad in that respect, but that doesn't mean the Opta hardware isn't quite good. Your best option right now is to use only the Arduino IDE, and it works wonderfully. I would never recommend the PLC IDE, even if you can get it to work practically; I've encountered errors that cause the code I wrote to stop for no reason in the PLC IDE, and I have to restart it, and problems with modules that only exist in the PLC IDE. I've never had those problems with the Arduino IDE, but perhaps the learning curve is a bit steep.

10

Take a look at OpenPLC. It is cross platform and supports the Opta and I think the Portenta as well. I’ve only done some quick tests with it but got it working as expected quickly. The main issue I’m having is that it does not support the Opta expansions but I’m hoping some folks will take interest in it and build up the demand for expanded support.

11

TL;DR // an honest opinion about PLC IDE, after 500h of use //

I have now tried the new and "hot" version 1.1.0. Which promises remote download over Modbus TCP. I think this PLC IDE is still not reached a usable state. The migration from Opta 1.2 runtime version to 1.3 was like hell. Reformat every partition, reactivate license, then I could get it running after 4h of work. Then I realized connection is really unstable over wired ethernet to Opta. Then another day of challenges, and finally concluded the OTA update do not work properly. I could get it running only 1 time. Since then when it starts to download the program it drops an error when writing to OTA partition over Modbus TCP.
So back to USB serial for full download.
The only usable part of Modbus TCP Download if you do not change anything in sketch part, but only on the PLC part. Then it can download. But I guess this is the same feature that was removed in earlier versions, as this is only half of the download.

No clue why it fails when starting OTA download. In theory it should work in a way it downloads the complete binary to OTA partition then a reset updates the whole PLC runtime user program + the sketch part.

So I think this update is too late, and I guess most of the ones who was interested about this good piece of hardware has already lost attention.
So I think you need to let this PLC IDE fail. The only reason I personally still try to work with it because it would be too much time to migrate to OpenPLC or to normal Arduino IDE.

So shame that this good hardware is just a piece of dumb plastic without the proper SW support.

And not to mention that the built-in Modbus RTU was also not communicating well with my modbus relay cards, it was unstable and only worked with 1 card at a time, so I needed to reimplement the whole modbus part in sketch to be able to use 2 RTU card.

Try this only if you are serious into not giving up, as this product gives a challange everyday.

To say something positive too, when you finally made it running, and you do not need to change and touch then it just runs stable as expected. It communicates also well with a Kinco HMI. There was only 1 freezing of the PLC in one months. Maybe this is even too much for a PLC advertised as being industrial grade. I used to work with PLC-s with 5-10years of uptime on UPS, without any freezing.

Take this as you wish, I just shared, to help others decide to start the journey or not.
Should you decide to start, be warned, you will learn super good hacking and problem solving skills, but it will be a hard road.