Hi all

Is it possible to store your current .ACD project from the processor on to a CF card yet?
I have read other forums only mentioning L6X processors..

Thanks

Hi Donovan,

I've worked with two 1769-L32Es in one plant. One had a compact flash slot and the other did not (to our chagrin--had expected both to come with it). It appears to be optional. The current program can be stored to compact flash in the one that has a slot. It must be done in programming mode, which makes it a bit of a pain (have to find a time when plant is not running to keep it up-to-date).

I understand some of the newest processors (probably not L32Es) are now smart enough to store the current program and values to (internal, I think) flash memory just before shutting down due to power loss. That would be a very sweet setup, as manually maintaining is a pain and, at least in our case, very difficult/impossible to keep fully up-to-date.

Oh, one word of caution: AB has a tendency (genetic, I think) to dislike non-AB CF cards. Their first question when you call TechConnect regarding failed stores to CF: "Are you using AB CF?" We were actually using non-AB CF cards successfully, but they quit workin in ALL processors (where they had worked flawlessly before) when we upgraded AB firmware. So, you get what you pay for with AB CF, if you're paying off AB to let you use CF.

Good luck,

Only the old 1769-L20 and -L30 controllers do not have CompactFlash card slots.

All the -L31, -L32x, -L35x, -L43, -L45, and -L61/62/63/64/65 controllers have them.

Some clarifications:

The *.ACD file is not stored to the CompactFlash card when you perform a Store to NVMEM. Instead, there are three files written to the card: *.P5K, *.BIN, and *.XML.

The P5K file is the controller program and database in an internal format.
The BIN file is a binary image of the controller's operating firmware.
The XML file is read by the controller at startup to determine what function to perform, i.e. load always or load on corrupt memory.


The principal reason that the controller must be in Program Mode when you save to NVMEM is that CompactFlash writes take quite a while, compared to ControlLogix execution. The controller would have to be able to write its entire memory contents (operating system, program file, tag database, tag values) to RAM in a few milliseconds, meaning it would require double the amount of RAM just for this function.

The 1756-L6x Series B controllers, when you remove power, run the controller in a shutdown mode for a few seconds and copy all that information out of RAM into an onboard NAND flash memory chip (not onto the CF card).

The 1756-L6x controllers with Version 16 or 17 firmware have a special function that allows you to read and write tag values to the CompactFlash during run mode. This isn't the user program; it's just specific tags that you use CIP Messaging to save to the CF card. None of the CompactFlash controllers support this feature.


The internal filesystems of CompactFlash cards vary slightly between different manufacturers and Rockwell can't test everything on the market, so they support only the 1784-CF64 and CF128 cards that they can test.

As a further followup, note that the *.ACD file is NOT written. This is equivalent to what you get if you do an upload from a controller without a corresponding *.ACD program. All the tags and basic program structure come through but any comments in the code are gone. On PLC-5 & SLC, this ws almost the kiss of death and all but useless but with CLX, since tag names tend to be much more descriptive, it's not all that bad.

You can't use the binary file format that the controller stores directly in L5K, but you could transfer it to another identical CLX, power up, and recover the program (sans documentation).

Another note; even the tested A-B cards have a lot more capacity than is used by the Logix, so I always ship out a control system with the full HMI and PLC application files in a compressed archive file with a readme.txt stored on the CF card. I include these files both in the PV+ and in the Logix CF cards, in case one gets removed.

Additional controller functions using the CF cards include the storage of system module firmware files for use by the Firmware Supervisor (v16), as well as internal log files for system changes (a v17).