Andy_P

OK, found this in the W336-E1-08 maual so it would appear I am out of luck. "Note A baud rate of 57,600 bps can be selected when using Unit Ver. 1.2 or later (115,200 bps is not possible)." Question for Zoran Mihajlovic: How did you get it working? Andy.

Well, I cannot get it to work at 115K. Every other baud rate is fine. Changing the baud rate to 115K results in a flashing red ERH light on the SCU as soon as the port settings are downloaded, with RUN and RDY lights both remaining green. To recap, I am using: CJ1M CPU22 V3 CJ1W-SCU21 V1.3 CX-Protocol V1.6 Any help appreciated, thanks. Andy.

Thanks, I'll keep persevering with it then. It's been a while since I fiddled around with protocol macros! Andy.

Hmm, well that may or may not be true. However, Compolet 2003 and FINS Gateway 2003 are specifically written for use with .NET as they are true .NET assemblies, and as such do not require any of the interoperability wrappers that legacy ActiveX controls do. Andy.

Compolet V2003 is compatible with .NET.

Hi, Yes, this does help me, thank you. For your reference, the class libraries I am referring to is the Fgwdotnet.dll assembly. If this file is referenced in my VB.NET application, it allows me access to FINS Gateway directly, without the need to use Compolet. In fact, if Compolet is installed, it installs this file itself, as it uses it for its communication with FINS. I am trying to find out from Omron if I can cut out the 'Compolet middle-man'! Thanks, Andy.

Hi all, Can anyone tell me if it is possible to purchase FINS Gateway 2003 Runtime edition on its own, without the need to buy it as part of the Compolet package also? FINS comes supplied with a .NET class library that can accomplish all that Compolet can with a little more programming effort. (In fact, if there are any .NET programmers reading, using the ILDASM disassembler shows that Compolet merely calls the functions with this library.) I have asked this question to my UK rep, but they are being particularly slow in responding. OMRON part no. for FINS: SFGW-RT-2003E Thank you for any replies. Andy.

Anyone?

Thanks for the reply SVN, very interesting. Can you tell me if the product you have is part numbered as above, and that it does include the .NET class library? Thanks, Andy.

Hi, I have searched high and low, and I cannot find any definitive specifications on the Toolbus comms protocol. I have noted a thread further down the board looking for the same thing, and also downloaded the Multiway program, which gives some kind of insight on it. However, is there any official Omron documentation on this? I can't see why Omron would want to keep this a secret - you can only use it on Omron kit after all. Surely we shouldn't have to reverse engineer it using third party software? Any help appreciated, or any reasons why Omron want to keep secrets! Thanks, Andy.

I have no problems running Toolbus at 115200 to CJ's either (not tried it with Bluetooth yet though.) My point was, I can use Toolbus at any speed except 57600. It's not that it has drop-outs, it just plainly doesn't even connect at all. All other speeds are fine, just curious to know why 57600 should be an odd one out. (Admittedly, I haven't played with frame rates at all.) Andy.

Thanks for the replies guys. I would agree that I too would be unwilling to release something into the field with a Toolbus protocol that I myself am transmitting and receiving, just in case there are any caveats that I don't know about. In the meantime, the Mulitway program does provide some excellent help in this matter, but there will always be a nagging doubt about the full spec. Among some questions I have is why does Toolbus not seem able to work at 57600 baud? (In my experience at least.) Andy.

I had the same problem, so I used the Numeral Input control that uses the Tenkey keypad, with a bit of macro code. You can set an option that makes the display each number entered as a '*' character to hide numbers that are entered. The option to display a ' * ' is labelled 'Display input values by *', on the General tab of the Numeral display&input properties. The code I used for my macro went in the 'When changing numeral' section. This is my macro code: IF ($W0 == 2512) ' Password $W0 = 0; WRITECMEM([PLC:WR00076.00],$B1,1); ' Set 'Engineers menu entered' flag. SHOWPAGE(22); ' Switch to Engineers menu, screen 22. ELSE $W0 = 0; ENDIF; $W0 is the address I am writing to with the numeral entry control. Rewrite this to suit your needs! Hope this helps. Andy.

What is the correct way to deploy a Visual Basic .NET project that uses Compolet 2003, observing licensing requirements? I was told that once a project had been created, you distributed it along with a FinsGateway 2003 runtime. However, if you do this, when the project is run, warning boxes appear, saying 'This is not licensed...' etc, etc. The project does, however, run correctly after these boxes are acknowledged. These boxes do not appear on my development pc, presumably because I have Compolet 2003 installed. I can't have these boxes appearing on a customer's pc, it looks very bad. Does this mean that you have to supply a Compolet 2003 disk and fully install it, as well as a FinsGateway 2003 runtime disk? I do hope I am doing something wrong here, and that is not the case, otherwise the cost involved will be prohibitive. Hope someone can help, many thanks.

I have received the official response from Omron Japan, by way of my UK rep, and it is that a copy of Compolet 2003 must be bought and installed on any PC that it is to be used on. ie. You don't buy Compolet as a developement package only. It has staggered me how long it has taken for this simple question to be answered! My rep is paying me a visit on Monday, so that should be fun, as it was this guy who told me the complete opposite. It also appears that everyone in the UK has been in the complete dark about this issue. Has anyone else, anywhere in the world ever used Compolet 2003 and distributed an application that uses it to a customer? Anybody? Ever?

Anybody....?

Yes Ben, I am inclined to agree with you. I haven't tried this yet, but assuming it did work, this is really a bit of a hack, and almost certainly breaks licensing somewhere along the line. If it turns out that I have to do a complete install of the Compolet package onto customers' pc's then so be it, but I will most definitely be giving Omron some grief about this, because it is not what they told me, and they have yet to come back to me with an answer. I was told : Compolet was a one-off payment to allow development of applications, with the requirement to buy a Fins Gateway runtime for each application sold. I have never used any versions of Compolet before this one. Did previous versions have this problem? Has nobody used this version of the product at all???

No, this is how it is: On my development pc, I have installed FGW 2003 and Compolet 2003. I have created a project using VB.Net, and it works correctly without any warnings in this pc, as you would expect. When I package up this project, VB includes the required Compolet dll's in the setup package, along with any other references I have. To use this project on another pc, eg a customers, FGW must be installed first, otherwise, it completely doesn't work, with millions of errors as I would expect. When the project is installed, the Compolet dll's are copied also, into the project directory. Now, when the project is executed, I get the license warning message boxes, but as I say, after acknowledging them, the project works correctly. The message boxes say this: The project was created using legitimate Compolet and Fins Gateway software. I had been initially told that to distribute my project, I would need to buy a FinsGateway runtime disk for shipment every project, but I wouldn't need to supply a Compolet disk as well. I hope that makes the situation a little clearer for you. Thanks!

There is no actual physical license like a dongle, or a software license like a token disk. All there is, is the license agreement - 'Do not make illegal copies...' etc. In fact, there is nothing to stop you blatantly making a copy of the disks and never pay another penny... However - there is still this problem of the warning messag boxes being displayed, and this looks extremely unprofessional. Quote from the FGW documentation: It is the phrase 'Compolet must be installed in both the development and runtime environments' that worries me, as this is not what I was told by my Omron rep. Someone must know the answer to this! The software is dated 2003, and we are now in 2006, so it isn't a new product. Thanks for your help so far Pdl, much appreciated.

Thanks once again for the link. These documents are included as part of the Compolet package, and they don't really say much at all about distributing a product. One of the documents states that 'The full product must be installed', meaning Compolet itself. Surely you don't have to buy and install a complete Compolet package for every project you supply to a customer? The FinsGateway runtime I can understand, but I was told that only the references to the Compolet dll's are required to satisfy licensing requirements. Have I been informed wrongly? Maybe I should ask the question differently: I have a Visual Basic .Net project, using Compolet 2003 and FinsGateway 2003. What do I have to do to send a project to a customer? I really hope someone can shed some light on this for me. Many thanks!

Thanks for the link, but there are no articles relating to version 2003. The only relevant article is about version 2.0, and it doesn't say how to rectify the problem. I am having real problems finding anything on the net about this version. I am waiting for my Omron rep to give me some sort of an answer, and the lack of a reply so far is quite concerning. Does anyone have any experience with it? I can't be the only one, surely.....?! Thanks for any help anyone can give me.

Thanks for the further suggestions. I got a few things to try now at least. One thought I had was to maybe try a USB to Serial converter. Anyone had any success with that? Well, I will see how it goes. Thanks again for your help. Regards, Andy.

Hello, I have a CX-Supervisor project written under V1.0 running on a laptop and a PC, both with Windows 2000 Pro configured as a Standard user. On the laptop, it runs fine. On the PC, I get continual communications timeouts. As far as I can see, both laptop and PC comm ports are setup identically. (Both configured as COM1, 38400, 8, 1, N. Also transmit and receive buffers set to maximum.) Any ideas why this might be so, and more importantly, how can I fix it? I am using CX-Server V1.7.2. Thanks in advand for any help, Andy.

Thank you for your prompt response. Both the PC and laptop have identical setups - both use the same application and have CX-Server 1.7.2 I guess an upgrade is the first route forward - half expected as much. What beats me though is the fact that to all intents and purposes, the machines are identical. I just hate not having a definite answer and resorting to blind poking around hoping for the best. Oh well, that's Windows and PC's for ya! Thanks for your help. Andy.

Thanks for your help. Andy.