In June of 2017, the PLC-5 Control System was discontinued by Rockwell Automation and is no longer available or supported. Although the PLC-5 has been a very robust piece of hardware, its life is limited and there are lots of systems currently in use that run the risk of failure without a reduced-downtime replacement. Since Rockwell is no longer supplying replacement parts for these systems, many users are looking to eBay for replacement parts that are often very expensive and have no guaranty.Rockwell is encouraging customers to migrate from the PLC-5 Control System to the ControlLogix PLC platform, for which, hardware component and support is readily available. That said, an automation system upgrade from a PLC-5 to ControlLogix can be far more challenging than just installing new hardware. The ControlLogix (CLX) series is faster and easier to integrate with MES and ERP systems. Up-to-date hardware is accompanied by current software sets, making the ControlLogix platform simpler to diagnose with straightforward communications protocols. This new hardware also supports an expansive range of I/O and communication modules that allow them to be adapted to virtually any application.
