How often does Siemens release new PLCs?

How often does siemens come out with new PLC's? Thinking about upgrading to the 1500 PLC on a new project and wanting to make sure that siemens is not coming out with a new PLC before I stick with the 1500 PLC for the project. Also according to google the 1500 plc is 10 years old so this is why i am concerned. 

Thanks,

Robert Perkins

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My opinion (I'm just Siemens end user) is that S7-1500's are still in their infancy, as in, they are barely able to stand on their own, and still have not completely provided all functionality available on s7-300/400 platform.  Each year they do get closer.

They also release new versions of hardware to solve problems encountered with certain types of installations that can (apparently) only be solved by hardware modifications.

They also release a wider range of I/O and comm devices as time passes.

What Siemens has been doing since introducing the s7-1200 and then a few years later the s7-1500 is to insert more PLC levels at both ends of the processing and memory capabilities spectrum.

The trick is to select the proper hardware requirements for your project such that you can easily upgrade modules and the PLC as time passes and the project needs upgrades in the future (adding a new processing stage, adding integrated product tracking, more product feature traceability, passing traceability data from machine to machine in a production line, and so on).

That means to me that the main local PLC rack needs plenty of blank space on both ends of the PLC and I/O / comms / PS-PM modules and room to grow for the future with larger more powerful PLC model and to add more I/O or comms modules or larger PS-PM modules.

The s7-1500 is a highly capable automation controller system.  It is likely to be around for several decades.  Sure, the part #'s may change, the hardware and firmware revisions will change, but they should be available for many years.

I can say that without worry as I will not need to worry about it in another decade or so...  

lmmfurn

How often does siemens come out with new PLC's? Thinking about upgrading to the 1500 PLC on a new project and wanting to make sure that siemens is not coming out with a new PLC before I stick with the 1500 PLC for the project. Also according to google the 1500 plc is 10 years old so this is why i am concerned. 

Thanks,

Robert Perkins

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Split from HOW DO I POST NEW THREAD WITH NEW SUBJECT.

Hi Robert,

in 1994, S7-200, S7-300 and S7-400 were introduced. And - with the exception of the S7-200 - they are still available. Of course, after almost 30 years they have reached the end of their life cycle, there will be no more major updates.

The successors S7-1200, S7-1500 and for process control the new S7-4100 are still in development and will be further developed for some years. I for my part expect more than 10 years.

Yesterday I was at the SPS fair in Nuremberg, where Siemens presented the new innovative CPUs S7-1500 for the small and medium performance class. These CPUs come with more memory for program and data and with a much improved performance. These CPUs will also start with the new firmware version V3.0. Unfortunately, the old CPUs of this performance class (up to CPU 1516-3) apparently cannot be upgraded to V3.0.

So you don't have to fear a fast failure of the new CPU families (S7-1200/S7-1500/S7-4100). In your place I would wait for the innovative CPUs, the first CPUs should be delivered at the end of the year.

Kind regards
Stefan