Migrating from an ancient Beckhoff system?

Hello t_wend;

Could you please be a bit more explecit in your description?

There are tools to convert a S5 program to an S7 platform (more generally tp a S7-300 with Step 7 Classic (v5.x) or now to S7-1500 platforms with Step 7 V1x).

SIMATIC STEP 7 V5.5 From S5 to S7

https://support.industry.siemens.com/cs/ww/en/view/45531547

Migration Guide: SIMATIC S5 to SIMATIC S7-1500

https://support.industry.siemens.com/cs/ww/en/view/105106251

The software converting a S5 to an S7 is part of the Step 7 v5.x installation.

I believe alternate manufacturers (such as IBH-Softech, providing the Windows-based S5 for Windows) also have a conversion tool.to the S7 platform.

But is that what you are looking for? I know of no tool to work with S5 code with Beckhoff PLCs.

Hope this helps,

Daniel Chartier

Sure, I'll try and be a tad more descriptive.

My company generally uses Beckhoff controllers, but nowadays Beckhoff has their own built-in PLC and their own instruction list / statement list programming languages. Back in the day, our client used a Beckhoff S2100 PLC which apparently used a compiler to translate STEP5 code.

Our company's original goal was to rebuild the program from scratch, to move it into a more modern language and a more compatible controller. However now the company says it wants to keep all of the code and just move it to a modern PLC. Has anyone had success doing something like this? Keeping the same STEP5 structure and function but move it to new hardware. I'm having a hard time explaining to my bosses that I don't quite think that is possible, but I haven't quite told them 'no' yet.

A few year back I happened on some information about a replacement PLC that could be used as a drop-in replacement. Unhappily I did not record who it was.

I am not sure if Bechoff has a software based PLC that can be loaded with a type emulation. IBH sells memory cards that makes that PLC work like an S7 PLC. One example: https://www.ibhsoftec.com/S7-CX315-SD-Eng.

It might be this combination of
Beckhoff CX8000 PLC and IBH memory card with controller image
which I saw years ago but instead of the S7 image it was an S5 image.

Consider contacting IBH and Bechoff on these options.