Obsolescence guides · MicroLogix catalogue
MicroLogix obsolescence — 1000, 1200 and 1500
Allen-Bradley MicroLogix · 1998–present, partly discontinued
Where the platform stands
The older MicroLogix families are discontinued. MicroLogix 1100 and 1400 had longer lives, and Micro800 is the current small-controller range.
Why spares are hard to find
MicroLogix went into enormous numbers of OEM machines — packaging, conveyors, small standalone plant. The machines outlive the controller range, and the OEM is often long gone, so the plant is left sourcing a controller nobody makes for a machine nobody supports.
What actually fails first
From what comes through a repair bench on control gear of this age. Worth reading before you buy a replacement — two of these are cheap fixes that get misdiagnosed as a failed module.
Processors of this era keep the program and retentive data in volatile memory backed by a lithium cell. The cell lasts years, not decades — and when it dies the program goes with it on the next power cycle. Many "dead processor" calls are a flat battery and a lost program. Keep a current backup of the program off the machine; it is the cheapest insurance in the panel.
Relay outputs are rated in operations, not years. A contact switching an inductive load every few seconds reaches end of life long before the rest of the module. Symptoms are intermittent: the output is commanded and the device sometimes does not move.
The migration route, and what it really costs
Micro800 with Connected Components Workbench. Be aware this is a rewrite, not a conversion — the programming environment is different and RSLogix 500 programs do not transfer. For a small machine that is sometimes genuinely quicker than it sounds, but it is engineering time either way.
The case for keeping it running
Spares worth holding
If you are keeping the platform running, these are the items whose failure stops production — hold them rather than waiting to need them.
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Forge Horizons is an independent sourcing merchant and not an authorised distributor or agent of Allen-Bradley. This page is general guidance from our own sourcing experience, not engineering advice — confirm anything safety-related with the manufacturer or your integrator.