Connecting new PC to Series 6

[Guest kaiser_will]

I changed jobs and have now inherited a few GE Series 6 PLC systems that are not justified to be upgraded. There is an ancient laptop with a parallel card that cables into the Series 6 CCM module. My question...can I install Logicmaster 6 on my trusty Win98/DOS laptop and buildup a cable to serial into the PLC? I have read that serial is faster than parallel with Logicmaster 6, and parallel supports online edits while serial does not.

[Steve Bailey 118]

Any Series Six communications through a CCM module is serial. The parallel interface is through the top 37-pin port on the I/O control module. That's the module just to the left of the power supply in the CPU rack. There was a parallel interface card for PCs, but it requires two full length ISA slots in your computer. There was also a Micro Channel version for the IBM PS2 computer. There are two versions of Logicmaster Six, one version for parallel communications, the other for serial communications. Yes, you can run run LM6 under WIN98. It won't run on NT. I've never tried it on ME or XP, but I don't expect it would run. Even under WIN98 or WIN95, I've had problems with Pentium processors. The most annoying is that if you attempt to use LM6 to check the directory for a list of LAD files, it will crash. I'm pretty sure you're right about not being able to do online edits with serial communications, but I believe that parallel is faster than serial. I never had any problems with the speed of updates when using parallel.

[Camel 1]

About Serial and Paralell online edits. In the parallel version the upper keyswitch on the CPU must be in the STOP position to store I/O and register tables. The ladder diagram can be changed when the cpu keyswitch is in STOP or RUN position. In the serial version the upper keyswitch on the CPU must be in STOP position to store I/O tables, register tables, and the ladder diagram to the CPU. About running under ME or XP. Neither version of Logicmaster Six will run on ME or XP as they are based on NT technology. About Serial speed vs. Paralell speed For RS-232-C the maximum data rate is approx. 20 KBaud @ 50 feet. For RS-449, RS-422, and RS-423 the maximum data rate is approx. 100 KBaud @ 4000 feet and 10 MBaud @ 40 feet For CCM1 you can use RS-232-C, Current Loop, AND RS-422 on the J1 Port (25-pin, femal, D-type connector) OR RS-232-C or RS-422 on the J2 Port (9-pin, femal, D-type connector) I'm not sure about CCM2. We don't use any.