VMware + GX Developer EIA-232

[gleblanc 1]

Anybody used Mitsubishi GX developer (8.55H) under VMware Player or Workstation? I'm having some trouble getting reliable connections via serial to an FX1S PLC. The FX1S runs a simple program to sound the buzzers for start/end of shift/lunch/break at our manufacturing plant. The PLC seems to lose a few seconds a day. In the span of a month, the clock is often a minute off. I've taken to manually setting the time on it every Monday morning. Normal procedure is to carry my laptop in to the control panel, plug in the laptop PSU to the receptacle in the panel, hook up the serial cable. Then I fire up the connection settings, select COM2 and run a connection test. This succeeds about 50% of the time; if it fails, I simply click test again, and eventually it will succeed. Same thing with downloading the program or going to online monitor mode. Once I get in to online monitor mode, the connection is usually pretty stable, and I can set the time (I use online monitor mode so that I can see the current time on the PLC in real time). The error message from GX developer is: The data which was downloaded from the PLC is incorrect. The likely causes are as follows. The mistake is found in the transfer setup. The communication between the PLC and the peripheral is unstable because of the abnormal cable or abnormal H/W or the noise, etc. The data in the PLC is broken. <ES:01802007> Any thoughts?

[Rodney 21]

I have been using VM's for about the last 8 months version 5.0.1 with out any comms issues that you describe. I use GX developer 8.91 and a USB to serial converter but once the serial device is connected to the VM and the com port that is being used is put into the transfer setup the connection is then fine. Rodney

[RussB 22]

Like them I am guessing that the CRC was wrong. That generally infers addition of or loss of bits in the transmission. Addition could infer noise, loss could be a bad connection somewhere. Where to begin for me, would depend on how old this installation is and how long the wires are.

[JRoss 84]

I use GX Dev 8.55H using VMWare Player running WinXP. My host computer is running Win7 64bit. I've been able to connect to FX PLCs with no problem using either a the Mitsubishi USB to RS-422 converter, or a USB to RS-232 converter and a third party version of the SC-09 cable. No problems either way. Except for once. I was working on a line with about five FX PLCs, mostly FX2N, one FX1S, and one FX3U. For some reason I had trouble with the FX3U, but with slightly different symptoms. I could set up the connection and do a successful connection test, but had trouble going into monitor mode. It would simply fail. I tried both my cable setup, and eventually got one to work. The SC-09, I think. Didn't have any problems with the other PLCs on the line, so I still don't know what the issue was. Probably noise or something.

[kaare_t 155]

Like everyone says, should work fine. I've used VM's on VMWare Workstation and ESXi for years without issues.... I've never tried Player, but both Workstation and ESXi works without problems. Are you sure you're not sharing the com port with any other VM's? Did you try to replace the USB->Serial converter (these can often cause issues...)?

[gleblanc 1]

Player is, as I understand it, just a feature locked version of the workstation engine. My programming laptop isn't powerful enough to run multiple VMs at once, so sharing isn't an issue. I'm using the hardware serial port on the laptop, not a USB-to-Serial converter, and I'm using a genuine SC-09 cable that I ordered from my Mitsubishi distributor. Interestingly, I have no problems at all connecting to the Q02U CPU in one of the other machines.

[kaare_t 155]

So you have one VM for FX and one VM for Q? Are you sure that the COM port isn't in use by the "Q-VM" (maybe it is locked to the VM even if it's powered down)? Have you tried to connect to the FX from the "Q-VM"? In addition: FX uses some special time sync (negotiation about speed, e.g. FX2N tries first at 19200, then 9600....) at the initialization process of the communication (which could indicate why you have problems with the initial connection, but when first connected it works) in addition to the fact that the SC-09 also consists of a RS232 to RS485 converter. Q are pure serial RS232. The FX series are not good for converters, unstable serial ports, un-native serial ports and also modems because of the because of the more or less "strange" communication behavior. I would still check that the ONLY the VM you want to use (FX VM) are capable of using the specified serial port you want an that no other VM's have the same port assigned even when powered down.