kurt.brinker

Processor is a SLC 5/05. Fairly new at programming and we are going to slowly automate some of the manul operations at the plant. This is what i wrote up to automatically transfer oil into our tank until we hit a specified weight. we have 2 tanks to transfer in to, 6010 and 6020, and 2 tanks to transfer from, 2000 and 2001. Here is what i have so far. Its very basic but i believe everything is in order. Let me know if you see anything obvious. I always post up what i think is the perfect program and then alaric or mickey says, what if you did this and suddenly the clouds lift. If its full of errors then just tell me to try again but if it looks ok but might need some attention, please let me know what you think. oil.pdf

ahhhh, i dealt with this awhile back. I made a generic login for anyone dealing with plant maintenance. I can't remember the dang software i used but basically there is a Plant Maintenance user on the pc and once you login when you click start, you have the option to log off, turn off, or run the client and thats it. Its worked wonders for freeing up bandwidth and keeping the pc's clean. here ya go Microsoft Steady State. Free as long as you are running genuine windows xp. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/...is/default.mspx

no, sorry. i just started the client and moved it to my secondary monitor and maximized it. Then i started another one and left it on my primary screen. You want to be able to start he application and have it open on the secondary monitor and then start another one and have it stay on the primary monitor?

yes its possible, i just started two clients and put one on my secondary monitor and one on my primary.

I would love to attend one of ron beauforts classes but unfortunately there is no way i can get time off of work to go. Work will pay for 100% of my training but at the same time, I am the only person here that has any PLC experiance so if something happens, i HAVE to be here. I would like for whatever class i take to certify me as a plc tech. I ran across http://www.georgebrown.ca/Marketing/FTCal-Jan/caet/T903.aspx and it looks like a solid program. I can take all classes online and will be certified at the end. Are the other options out there that offer the same or better instruction?

got the approval just now. he said to put the startup fee of $430 on my company cc and to get started. They will review my progress and a score of 80% or above on the final test for each module will get my next module paid for.

Thanks for all the responses. I am going to pursue this since i have no mentor or other form of training here. I want to do it mainly for the knowledge but also the idea of free schooling no matter what the type, is extremely appealing to me. Ron: Before i worked on the units that i now program, i wired all the control panels together. The guy that taught me was about as strict as it gets as far as appearance. Everything was routed perfectly and was a work of art when it was done. Now i have that embedded inside me and i just can't wire up a panel any way i want to. I have to sit there and snip mm of wire off to make everything perfect. It just doesn't feel right if i don't. I was gonna let him do it since thats his bread and butter and can have a beautiful panel with 200+ terminal blocks wired up however i need, as well as my 5/05 and 13slot rack in about 2 hours.

the best part is that i used to be a service tech on the units i now do the plc's for so i can view it from both angles. I am now focused on our plant which luckily is not overly complicated and i have grasped their entire "mission" rather quickly. The 5-10 comparison was aimed toward unorganized programming. Where the obvious would be to have seperate lines for everything but when you think about it, you can streamline it and make it more efficient. I see what you are saying though. on a side note, i have a nice 13 slot rack with a 5/05 on it and an assortment of cards to play with as well as afew PV+ 600's and a few ML1500's I am going to try and get our electrical guy to wire up a board for me so i can start some troubleshooting and playing with scenarios.

after a little bit of brainstorming, we just decided to raise our inlet water temperature to reduce our cooling capacity and ensure the pumps will always be in demand

Here is the problem and what i believe can be a solution. We have a cooling setup that is as follows. (2) centrifugal pumps, pump water through 3" pvc piping into a reactor room with 2 heat exchangers. They are operated by VFD's that are controlled by a single PID loop to maintain temperature. The temperature rises very slow and can be brought to its setpoint in a matter of 5 minutes. The problem is that once it hits its setpoint, the CV is slowly lowered until it hits 0. At 0, the minimum VFD freq is 15hz so the pumps are still running, but VERY slow. The owner would like the pumps to be disabled when the CV is under 5%. Right now, we manually turn on the pumps using the HMI. I told him that if we incorporate an auto stop for the pumps, then we must incorporate an auto start for when the CV goes past 10%. I am thinking i can add a manual bypass to the system. The bypass would need to be enabled in order to control the pumps manually and when its disabled, the pumps on/off would be controlled by the CV. I would also incorporate 1 minute timers to ensure the CV is above 10% for more than a minute to enable the pump and below 5% for a minute to disable the pump. Any other ideas? or any problems with mine?

my main reason for doing it is so i can learn. I started doing this 3 months ago and i love it. i couldn't ask for a better job. the money isn't amazing but i love doing it so its good enough for me. I just want to be a "Ron Beaufort" one day. Where someone can ask me a question and i can tell them the correct answer and the reasoning behind it. Right now i am basically just modifying alot of PV programs, adding PID loops, on/off controls, interlocks, and metering. I just want to learn as much as i can so i can program in 5 lines what any fool can write in 10. edit: the company will foot the bill for any training as well so its hard not to take advantage of that.

(drive-letter):\Rockwell Software\RSViewME\Runtime\*yourfile.mer*

I recently put in several PID loops to regulate a few pumps. When i downloaded the program, it faulted and i got the following error. "an invalid value is being used for a PID instruction parameter" What are possible causes for this? I take the readings from 3 rtd's and use the CPT function to average them. I then write that value directly to the PV of the PID. My setpoint comes from the HMI and is rescaled from 0-99 to 0-16383. I use several SCP's to rescale my cv and such in order to display it properly but i don't know where my error is. I am sure its a common error between the pids but i can't find out where. Any ideas on what causes this? SLC 5/05

apparently my last 4 pid loops didn't get their parameters set. I always looked at the first one which was correct but i looked at the fault code and it led me to the second pid loop and when i opened up the setup screen it was blank!. everything is great now. Thanks!

I scaled my pv and it still doesn't work. My setpoint comes straight from the HMI and is rescaled like it needs to be. All of my PID setpoints are valid

read through your program and i understand most of it. i DID find a range for my rtd's. I have it scaled now and i am about to try it out. One question. on my rtd input card, the input is set for engineering units. If the temperature is 50 degrees, it comes in as 500. I multiply this x .1 to get my readable value. I noticed i have an option for engineering unitsx10 as an option for the input. will this give me a 50 degree input or a 5000.

whatever you find to put over the display, make sure it won't leave a residue when removed. We had a guy put clear mailing tape over a PV to keep it clean. DOH we quickly removed it as soon as we found it but i am sure that if it was left on for very long, we would have had some sticky residue on the screen. You might be able to find something at a marine shop. I am sure they make overlays for their controls/gauges.

since an rtd works off of resistance, there can't be a range right? I mean, other than the physical limitations of the component and wiring. Our room will never see below 0 and never more than 150. Can i scale that input 0-150 and then rescale it 0-16383 and use it as my proces variable? here is one of the 5 pid loops i have. The only difference is the amount of rtd's. this one has three and some of the other have 6. N11:25 is the setpoint from the HMI, N11:28 is a manual % setpoint for the VFD when the pid is in manual F8:15 is a rescaled CV to be displayed as a 0-100 on the PV F8:8 takes the actual VFD output and rescaled it so it can be shown in the PV as 0-100 lemme know if you have any other questions pid.RSS

my pv is not scaled. that may be the problem. It will always be coming in bewteen 20-60 degrees but i am now thinking i need to find the range on the rtd's and then rescale it to 0-16383 and make that my PV input. correct? I can take the average value and rescale that correct?

i have been reading through some older topics about probelms with networking and i am wondering if i will hit a limit on how many devices i can have. Right now everything works great and consists of (3) 8 port switches (3) SLC 5/05 processors with 13 slot racks, one of which has a 7 slot expansion (5) panelview plus 600 displays How much more can i add?

We have a level transmitter that sends a 4-20 signal to the plc. The plc rescales it at 0-100% and then that unit is displayed on the panelview. If you stay on that screen, the value never updates but if you leave the screen and come back to it, it shows the correct and current value. Any ideas?

its a numeric display directly reading that memory location. we are finding more and more units like this in the field. I now have the ability to flash the firmware and i have copied and converted the PV program. Is there a reason for this? Some say it was working before and others say it has never worked. I am just trying to undestand (i believe they are all 3.1 or 3.2. we use 4.0 at our main facility and have yet to experience a problem) (also, if they reboot the PV, it works great for a little while)

i had the exact same problem and i reformatted and it started working. I was told it had something to do with factory talk but i never did find out. Your best bet would be to e-mail it to someone and let them try to open it.

got it, thanks. got the old 3.1 updated today so i'm hoping this fixes my screen refresh problem

I have searched ab.com for hours now and i can't find it anywhere. I have a panelview plus 600 with firmware 3.1 and i want to update it to 4.0. Where can i find the firmware!! Its not on the RS View ME cd either