Converting to Lookout 6 from GE Fanuc iFix 3.5

[SDerrington]

Has anyone attempted a system conversion from GE Fanuc's iFix 3.5 to Lookout 6.x? We're not getting what we want out of iFix and are evaluating Lookout as a replacement package. It seems to meet our needs, if we can get good support and an integrator to make the changeover. Does anyone have any recommendations or know of a company that can do this for us in the KY area?

Thanks!

[Khalid]

Hi,

Welcome to Lookout!  It's an easy yet powerful package.  If your's is a straight-forward project, and you have the resources (not necessarily Lookout experience) you could accomplish this on your own.  In any case, National Instruments partners with Consultants and System Integrators -- calls them Alliance Members.  You can look them up here:  http://www.ni.com/alliance

If you do not mind, can you share the high-level specs of your project, like, the hardware/PLCs, # of IO points, type of remote monitoring, # of client nodes, etc.  Also, the areas where iFix is lacking -- as far as your prjoect goes -- would be interesting to know.  I have worked with both packages and am just curious is all..

Support wise, these forums are what you get for free.  And usually questions posted here are answered almost daily (by non-NI Lookout enthusiasts like me  ).  These forums are also monitored by NI folks, who jump in when there's a difficult issue.  I don't know the details of paid support, but you essentially get to call NI; and there are different levels within that.  I believe NI also has (had?) what they call Startup assistance where an Engineer from NI would come down to you and help you get up and running.  Not sure if they still do this (and Lookout doesn't really have a big learning curve).  Your area's NI Sales person should be able to help you with this (and will try sell it to you ). 

Thanks and good luck!

-Khalid

Message Edited by Khalid on 04-03-2006 01:39 PM

[SDerrington]

Hi, Thanks for responding. I have so far been unable to find an Alliance partner from the website...not a single one for Lookout. My sales rep is trying to find someone for me. We have 2 iFix nodes in the Water / Wastewater Industry. We have only about 200 I/O's. I am sure I could maintain and extend the Lookout system once it has been configured, but I would rather have a system integrator make the migration for us.  I am the IT guy, but don't have much experience with PLC's, and other SCADA type information.

I am surprised there is no comparison information for Lookout versus iFix or other products. I haven't located it anyway. If iFix is the largest HMI\SCADA software provider as they claim, I would have thought NI would try to sway folks from them...cost and features are a strong good sales pitch.

Everything I've seen about Lookout seems very promising, but I am concerned about the lack of consulting support I've been able to locate thus far. I want to be able to call in someone on-site in case of emergency.

Thanks for any info anyone can provide.

[Khalid]

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@SDerrington wrote:

... Everything I've seen about Lookout seems very promising, but I am concerned about the lack of consulting support I've been able to locate thus far. I want to be able to call in someone on-site in case of emergency.

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That's definitely a concern.  I am hoping this does not reflect NI's roadmap for Lookout.  To be fair, I must point you to the following discussion: Is NI dropping support for Lookout?

-Khalid

[SDerrington]

Hey,

  Yes that's the kind of stuff that bothers me. There seems to be very little emphasis on Lookout on the website, or in the discussion groups. It is clearly not their focus. Last week the regional sales guy did a three hour demo for me and confessed to having never sold or even seen the product until the prior day! It seems like a great product....but I certainly have my concerns.  Thanks.

[Davidd]

I'm surprised that IFix is not providing the kind of performance you want.  Currently, I'm working with CiTech, IFix, Plantscape, and Lookout, and I would have to say that of the bunch, Lookout is on the bottom of the capability scale.

Thats not to say that Lookout is without merit. For a small control system, Lookout is by far the fastest way to implement it, and relatively easy to manage drawing graphics for and getting the system operational.

I should also point out that I'm working with what I would consider a "very large" system from Lookout's point of view.  I've got almost 5500 I/O points spread over around 50 PLCs, and 4 view node clients connected to 2 redundant server units (and each of those have around 4-5 thousand data points they're looking at).  Performance from Lookout in that system is slow, and relatively unremarkable most of the time.

The client made the mistake of "upgrading" from Fix to Lookout around 4 years ago.  In the past 4 years, the comparison between Lookout and Fix has been pretty dramatic.  The Fix system ran flawlessly for over 8 years before being replaced (started with Fix DMACS 5, and ended up with IFix 3 before replacement), while the Lookout system has been nothing but trouble.

However, I do develop and support a few "small" systems that use Lookout in the range of 200-400 data points, even 1000 datapoints, and they work flawlessly in those applications.  Seems the problems we have with Lookout at this large site may be related to either our client/server style layout (which doesn't seem to perform very well), or the actual size of the system.

For a small system of just a few hundred I/O points, I'd look at Lookout or CiTech.  CiTech has issues if you're going to do remote operator stations, which in a small system Lookout does not.  Lookout does not have a traditional database structured style layout, nor is it partitioned into the separate server parts that iFix and CiTech is.  In Lookout, if you run it, you get it ALL.  You can't separate separate functions from each other, nor can you replace or augment individual functions separately.  That can be good or bad, depending on your requrements.  If you only need a simple control system, it's difficult to accept the fact that you can't turn off alarming, or historical data, or any of the other components that you can turn off in component systems.  On the other hand, you don't have to deal with them separately either.

If you need a number of remote control and view stations, iFix or Plantscape would still my choice.

David Dudley

[SDerrington]

Hey, I appreciate the info. We are evaluating Lookout and VTScada. We have a couple water companies around us using VTScada, so that's a plus for sharing how-to information. VTScada also has a database conversion utility for iFix.

We only have a couple hundred I/O's. Our issues with iFix are that in order to get the features we want, we need to purchase Historian, Real Time Info Portal, a Developer node, and pay about $4500/yr just for support. They're pricing it beyond what we consider a good value for us.

Thanks for the info!

[Davidd]

I can certainly understand the cost issue.

For something small, with just one developer working on it, Lookout is great.  One thing though, Lookout is generally difficult for more than one integrator to work on.  Because of the structure of the system, everything is self contained, which doesn't lend itself to passing off components to sub integrators to develop.  I've merged multiple things together before in Lookout, but it isn't pretty.  NI will tell you "just develop in multiple process files", and sometimes that works, but usually it doesn't.

Also, Lookout associates Historical Data with remote I/O points.  You can't just say "Log everthing that happens", but only items related to physical I/O.  There is an Alarm block that allows you to generate alarms also, and prehaps for a small system that would be useful, but I've never been able to integrate into one of the systems I work on, due to their general size.

David

[Davidd]

Something else you might want to look into, NI LabView.  I have several buddies that swear by that (or is it at that?  I get those confused  ;-).  Seriously, there is a reason that LabView is NI's 'premier' product.  You get much better support, and there are a pile more developers.

David

[SDerrington]

Thanks for the info. We're trying to move into something that has some canned functionality so that we don't have to build everything from square one. iFix, like Labview, etc. will let you build anything you want...but you have to build it all...it would be nice to being able to implement some things have already been tailored for our industry...then customize to our specific needs. That's the pie in the sky vision anyway.