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Many years ago, in the infancy of SCADA, there were no "off the shelf" packages like Citect & RSView etc, SCADA systems tended to be bespoke systems. Serck controls was one such company which developed bespoke SCADA systems for petrochem, water industries etc. Several years ago, they were about the best you could get, now however, packages such as RSView etc have taken over due to their cost effectiveness and simplicity in setting up/programming. I have had about 6/7 years experience of operating a Serck SCX system (SCX 4 I think) and there are certainly many good points about the system, however there are bad ones too (as with any system you compare). One problem was that this system ran on a DEC Alpha with VMS operating system (not many people about who know about VMS these days). One of the benefits of SCX6 was that it was desinged to run on PC hardware on NT (which brought the associated costs down). However, last year I priced up for a new system at one of our sites and compared a Serck SCX6 system with an RSView system (connected to SATT plc's). The RSView system won both on the hardware & software costs, and also on the configuration. It would be wrong of me to not reccomend a Serck system on the basis of my experiece alone, they are a good system, and certainly very reliable, but I have found that spares are expensive and the service level sometimes lets you down and personally find that packages such as RSView & Wonderware are certainly easier to configure.

The "Differential" radio button is selected in the "input type" field of the setup dialog. My reason for assuming that they would be single ended is that the majority of the inputs are flows, which are usually a single point source (i.e. transducer to PLC), the only differential input's I've ever seen were on pressure systems, never flow or level.

I notice that you have "differential" rather than "single ended" selected on the module setup dialog, but the inputs look like single ended. If this is the case it may explain your problems?

Can you post an example of the code you are using to set up the master station?

If I remember correctly... There are 4 terminals you are interested in, two of which are marked "input" and "100/240VAC) - this is where you connect yor supply, the other two terminals may or may not have a shorting link across them, labelled "short 100v" and "open 100v" Thus if you are using 240v supply, the terminals will be empty, and for 100v they will have the shorting link If the above does not match the terminal configuration of your unit, can you please post what it is. Regards

When you move F0h into your string element, you are moving the ASCII character code into that register, F0 is in the extended ASCII character set and am not sure whether the processor supports this, that's why you get the \F0 displayed. To make the string display "F0" you would need to move the code for both F and 0 into the string register thus MOV 4630h > ST10:0.1 where 46h=F and 30h=0 Regards

Another explanation to add, it's sometimes the simple ones which catch us out but... I have come across PLC5's whose DH+ node address will default to '0', which is the same node address which RSLINX will default to, if they are both '0' you will not communicate.

Not sure of your PLC type, is it an F2-24MR? or an FX2N? If it is an F2 then you cannot use GX developer to program it. I can't find any part that matches your part No. in the UK price list - where did you buy it from? When you read your program back and there is one end instruction, view it in instruction list (IL), the IL view will show you the entire contents of the memory, it may be that it has inserted the END at step 0 and the rest of your code is below that.

For info, the SC-06 lead comes with a 5v power supply which connects to the lead to supply the HMI when you up/download, as the HMI gets its power from the CPU, when you unplug it, it switches off! Sadly, the SC-06's are obsolete, the last place I knew that sold them was RS components (where I got mine from). Mitsubishi no longer supply this part. My suggestion would be that you borrow (or rent) one from either Mitsubishi or a local system integrator. Regards

Look in the downloads section: Mitsubishi A & FX Password

I need to make a backup of an XBTP022010 HMI. Can anyone please advise of a connection diagram / pinouts so I can make a cable up? regards

you require an F2-20 GF1 interface and an SC02 cable to connect this to your PC

I have used GX Simulator quite a lot when testing new code before it goes out to site, it is a very useful package, it's only real limitations are the speed, you have a base scan time of one second, so if you are simulating high speed processes, it's no good. You can simulate all data devices including buffer memory. The downside to it is that each time you use it, you have to set up all the devices each time you write the program to it, it does not remember what was a "true" the previous time. The simulator will work well with both GX Developer and IEC Developer, if you want to do a medoc project then you're probably better off importing it into GX developer for testing. I am suprised by your comment on paying for it, I assumed that it was a bundled product when you by GX or GX IEC as I can see no mention of it on the Mitsubishi price list.

Your best bet would be to use GX IEC Developer as your programming software. With this you can structure your program into subroutines similar to that of the Logix series. You can also make use of the IEC61131 programming techniques such as label programming, 5 programming languages, user defined data types etc

Question: What type of chips are fitted to the PLC? You can have EEPROM or RAM fitted and I have personnaly mistaken an EEPROM for a RAM (oops) on the An series. Is the PLC battery backed? If so it could be a higher chance that you have RAM If the are EEPROM's you must write the program to the EEPROMS using MEDOC and the same applies if they are RAM chips. You cannot remove the EEPROMS and not replace them with anything, you must replace them with RAM chips. The program has to be stored somewhere. In answer to your other question, yes, the whole program is transferred (from whatever memory) when uploading with MEDOC

You can use SFC on all of the Qn range, A series and FX2 series, on the A series you must allocate an area of memory for the SFC to work but that's about it. GX Simulator however, will not simulate an SFC program on a Q (something to do with it not being able to handle multiple programme files) but will simulate on A & FX (only one program file). You may be better off speaking directly with MEUK technical support if BPX cannot assist you. Just to prove a point, the attached picture shows a Q01 with an SFC POU! Regards

You CAN use SFC in a Q01 plc, all you need is the up to date version of GX IEC Developer, the feature is available in version 6 but not in version 5. I assume that you were using version 5 or below?? Regards

I have heard of someone connecting a mitsubishi Q to an AB using the QC24 serial comms card and writing the DF1 comms code themselves, so it is possible, just depends on how much time you have!! The simple solution is to use an inexpensive HMI such as an E200 as a "babel box", connect both PLC's to it and use the "message exchange" function. This does work well, I have done it myself, though if you are also using the HMI to the usual HMI things, the data exchange can slow it down somewhat.

I had a similar problem with a PV1000, no problems with the power supply etc. It was sent back to AB for repair, their diagnosis was simply that it had a faulty screen. I have had no problems with the repaired one since.

The BON function is unfortunately limited to FX Cpu's. For the other PLC's Q, QnA, A etc, and indexed compare must be used.

The counter datatype in Logix5000 is a pre-defined structure which is made up of two DINT's (ACC & PRE) and several BOOLS (CD, CU DN etc) Thus you cannot convert the entire structure into a simple data type such as a dint. Instead you could simply move the ACC part of the counter structure into a dint such as MOV my_counter.ACC count1 Or you could create a user defined data type with exactly the same elements as the counter structure and move the values as a block

An array of Bools can be indexed and compared individually using a data register as the index. Please see the attached example bit_index.pdf

Simple solution, use a Beijers E-Terminal supplied by Mitsubishi. These come with two ports, one RS232 and one RS422. Use the RS422 port to connect to the FX2N and you can use the RS232 port to connect your computer to the E-Terminal, a feature called "transparent mode" will allow you to program the PLC via the terminal. E-100 terminals and above support this feature.

VAL converts character string to 16 bit data DVAL converts character string to 32 bit data The opposite of these is STR and DSTR

Manual excerpt attached eromwr.pdf