SMControls

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About SMControls

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  1. Hello All, We have a production line that uses an L72S processor with a host of Ethernet / IP components. There are (3) on-machine LAN's derived from (3) individual Ethernet Modules. One of these LAN's is for drive communications. There are (36) Powerflex 70 EC drives and (10) 2904 Kinetix Servo drives on this network. [160 total connections] Occasionally, and becoming more frequent, we're having 4 of the axis fault on: Control Sync Fault and Module Connection Timeout Fault. Both faults are time stamped at the same time. The faults are on 4 out of the 10 axis in the motion group. The Powerflex Drives have an RPI of 20 ms. The motion group has a course update of 6.0 ms... I have reset all diagnostic counters in RS Linx... Now we wait again... Has anyone had similar issues? I read a KB article and found a similar forum reply on a different board that stated to upgrade the Kinetix to FW  > 2.08... Currently, we're at 2.16... Any insight is appreciated!
  2. Hello, All. My plant is starting an expansion. With the expansion comes new equipment and new technology. We started having preliminary talks on integration and line control. The caveat: In our current architecture, the line PLC’s do not connect to an external network. We’re now conceptualizing a Plant Floor Network. Preliminary discussion with our business side network admin shows that there isn’t room on that infrastructure. They’d need to procure new hardware, etc.  With that being the case, our engineering manager would like to keep this network completely separate. We’d build our own, yet consult with our IT group… Our plant is all A-B controls of different generations. As stated before, each line is independent. No standard IP range was followed, so there are many different address ranges, etc. The short term goal is to get the line PLC’s networked together for interlocking (explicit, peer-to-peer) messaging, remote support, and diagnostics. Mid-term goal is to have a Supervisory PLC monitor and control equipment in the expansion. This most likely will entail some form of producer and consumer tag communications, Drive control for conveyance, Remote IO, and HMIs… Long term: integrate data collection and historian abilities.   I’m interested in your opinions: I believe that it’d be more efficient to install 1756-ENBT cards in a control logix racks, where applicable, and leave the line IP addressing alone on the current machine LAN. Some of our lines have a few PVP1000’s and PF 70’s on the machine side LAN. One line has 72 nodes incorporating IO, Drives, and HMI’s. Having to change all machine controls IP addressing would be a daunting task and have to fit in the very small downtime windows that we have here. Is installing a separate bridge module or gateway on the majority of the lines an approved practice? Does it make sense to segregate production areas by use of layer 3 switching, or a router?  We have 6 separate production areas which house anywhere from 1-4 lines each. The facility is ~300,000 sq. ft. Interlocking messaging (peer-to-peer) and the supervisory PLC would need to communicate across the entire network. We're specifying Red Lion, N-Tron, hardware for this network. Thanks in advance!    
  3. UPDATE: I was able to find a work-a-round if you will... I borrowed the FT View Studio License to the Win XP machine running v6.0. The application opens and has all text descriptions including messages!
  4. Hello. I have successfully converted a few applications over from FTView < 6 to FTView > 6 in the past... Bob, you are correct when you stated that this task is daunting. I have an application that FTView 'says' converted OK and Imported (as new) OK. However all of the text is replaced with '?'. This includes all of the Alarm Messages. All PLC Address references are present. Testing the runtime application does validate that all buttons, indicators, and numeric displays do connect to the PLC. The only difference from the method that Bob described above is - I'm restoring a runtime application file (*.MER) first through the Application Manager on the XP machine. The *.MER was complied to a v5.10 runtime file originally. I have FTView 6.0 on the XP machine (no current license). FTView Studio v8.1 on the Win 7 machine. I tried copying the HMI Project folder for this specific application from the Win XP to Win 7 PC (after Legacy Tag Conversion) via copying across network share to local folder on Win 7, and copying the project folder using removable drive. Same result in both methods. Any insight is greatly appreciated.