davefinic

After years of looking for suitable software I had a demo of Eplan at a trade show with a quote of £1000 for the basic package, which is still very powerfull although it is limited to 40 pages and cannot tranlate languages. I bought the programme and found it very easy to use, with an excellent symbol library. I would advise that you factor in the cost of a training course though £750 for 3 days, the tutor was excellent and with a class size of 3 we were quickly carrying out tasks more efficiently and fully realizing the power of the programme and the functions available. It may sound expensive compared to some of the programs mentioned but I can now produce high quality schematics very quickly.

Giz

dont know how cheap you want but i like to use Brodersen process signal convertors have a look at RS part number 324-0740 its £86 you may be able to make something yourself i dont know how but by the time youve finished messing about with prototypes its costs more money than buying a ready made item which has been tested and should give years of trouble free service.

I use a USB to serial convertor and have not had any problems with FX plcs I have also seen the PCMI card adaptors which were troublesome and looked very fragile for on site progamming

Correct the neutral is connected to ground by the supplier this may be at the meters if you have a PME supply or further down the line at the substation but you should NEVER connect to ground. I have seen some examples of bad practice where a panel has needed a neutral for some mods and this has just been connected to ground as there is no neutral at the panel, in these circumstances you should either pull in a neutral or I sometimes fit an extra transformer to get my 240V

Panic mode one of your breakers has tripped

I used to have lots of problems with Medoc printing being one. Update to GX Developer you wont regret it

keep the snoopy he looks cool

THANKS FOR YOUR HELP GUYS ITS THE USB-RS422 CONNECTOR IVE NOW ORDERED ONE FROM RS AS IM IN A BIT OF A RUSH. I'd just like to add what a great forum I think this is everybody seems to help no matter how trivial or complicated the problem seems to be, keep up the good work Thanks again

hi can anyboby please advise me on a communication problem if I use my SC-07 lead with a USB convertor I never have any problems connecting with FX PLC's but if I use my SC-09 lead with the same USB convertor and same comm settings I get an error on PLC's and a E100 HMI. I wondered could the USB convertor be faulty as I believe other people have had alot of problems with these or could it be the SC-09 lead, maybe it could be both? I have borowed the SC-09 lead to test the HMI, I think this is the correct way to connect HMI to laptop, anybody had expiriance with these. I can connect HMI to PLC no problems with connections there but would like to programme from E-designer. Thanks Dave

do you mean running the compressors one at a time or are you looking for a sequential start sequence

an easy solution would be AND T5 SET T6 K100 T6 PLS M2 AND M2 IN PARALLEL WITH X0 M1 RST T6 T6 COULD THEN BE USED TO SET A SMALL DELAY BEFORE THE NEXT CYCLE i hope this helps as it only uses simple ladder instructions similar to your original programme so should pose no problems for you

I can import a file to gx developer from a memory stick but i cant open this file even if i copy it to my memory stick i get the message a read file has not been selected. i have tried to open it as a windows and dos file but get the same message.

can anyone help me ive downloaded this file but cant open it in gx developer

im interested in buying a cad package for my panel schematics and have looked at autocad electrical, a great package but the cost was very high about £4000 with training, can anybody post costs on other software and whether its easy to use without having to waste time and money on training courses. I cant justify high costs as only a small portion of my turnover is related to panelbuilding.thaks Dave