Rod_Hackney

I have not worked on the Compax3 myself but one our our engineers just did a job at one of our facilities in Mexico using it. I mentioned it to him and he recommended the following link for manuals, training videos and additional setup information: http://www.parkermotion.com/manuals/hauser...ax3/Compax3.htm

Data Logging on the remote site every minute ends up being a lot of data to transfer one time a day. What kind of wireless network are you using can have a big impact on transfering the file. If you are archiving data locally to a csv file, the import option might be the easiest way to go. I would check with Scada HMI package manufacturer to discuss options for bulk file import.

Did you resolve your problem? I have a site within our company that runs Intouch 9.5 Sometimes in order to resolve problems you may have to save your application and remove then reload Intouch or even the operating system if the windows registry has gotten corrupted.

I have a Wonderware Intouch 9.5 Application at one of our facilities logging production data to a Microsoft Access Database. It is a standard Wonderware implementation but after running for two weeks it just quit logging. The particular machine I have it on is running Microsoft XP service pack 1. Anyone ever run into issues like this with Wonderware Intouch and MS Access?

You can create a UDT to contain the boolean array and use FLL on the tag of the UDT type.

You should be able to import the CSV file into a package like Microsoft Excel and do some basic trends with it.

Two years back, I put in several at one of our facilities. They have held up good. No problems with them yet.

I believe JasperMP is correct. We are using Siemens S5 V7.2 to work with the few S5s we have left. It did come with a authorization disk and runs on a standard PC, although in a DOS shell.

Make sure your serial port is not being locked by any other application. Also, if you are using a USB to serial adapter (since most new pcs do not have serial ports built in) make sure you have the correct port number in your configuration.

There are several S5 manuals posted on the site that you can download.

I believe Siemens quit supporting S5 platform sometime ago. The best way to look for parts is on third party used plc sites or if your company has multiple locations, sometimes, someone has spares in house. The best course of action is to upgrade to S7 Siemens PLC if possible.

I would suggest that you could power down the unit and take spare cards of the same type and swap them one at a time and power backup. If this is the approach you wish to take. The program is mapped to specific hardware addresses. If you swap the wrong type of module into a slot, the program will fault on power up. I am not familiar with the operator interface but assuming it is like most on the market, it should be connected to the PLC by a interface cable. If the operator interface is locking up on power up, I would doubt that is a plc related issue, probably a problem with it.

Some very good examples of HMIs that provide good alternatives. I have used Indusoft, Citect, Wondeware, intellution, AB and a little of Wincc (Siemens). They all have their good and bad points but one thing that is very important other than cost of course is the ability to get good tech support. My opinion on all of these would be that intellution and wonderware have the best HMI tech support with AB being a close second. Cheap might not sound so good at 3: am in the morning with a process down.

Found out through wonderware support that it was a corrupted application file. Reloaded configuration and everything is fine.

Siemens no longer supports S5 so getting help is going to be difficult at best. This site has posted as a manual you can download, the user manual for Siemens S5. I do not think you can get S5 processors directly from siemens anymore, although I may be wrong. If you application is done with stand alone PLCs that are not networked together, you may be able to add an Siemens S7 PLC for the new application. IF you happen to have all the S5 hardware you need and can build identical hardware panel and wire the I/O the same, there are several third party S5 PLC programming softwares that would allow you to extract the program from one of your running PLCs and download to you new system. But everything must be the same hardware and I/O wiring wise.

There are several radio suppliers that are in the Allen Bradley partner program that supply radio modems. Both licensed and spread spectrum license free models. I would look at ABs website for referenced manufacturers. I have worked with Esteem radios in the past and they are an AB partner.

I did a few scada systems with Control Microsystems in the past. My understanding is the C program runs independent of the ladder. So as the control micro guy stated, if you do not have the source for the C, it will be difficult to know exactly what is going on other than review of the ladder program. I know that most developers us the Control Micro C primarily for data collection and do all the control and communications stuff in ladder in the telepace software.

Here is a listing I downloaded from another site a while back. It relates to RS studio files on Panelview Plus unit. Haven't had the opporunity to try it out yet. But here it is: To un-archive the MER file follow these easy steps: 1. Upload MER file from PanelView Plus. 2. Double click on the project with the MER extension. RS View ME Station will start. 3. As long as RS View ME Station is running (even if an error is shown) it un-archives the project to: C:\Documents and Settings\<login username>\Local Settings\Temp\~MER.00 Replace <login username> with your login details. Note that “\Local Settings” is a hidden directory. The un-archived files are deleted when ME Station is no longer running. The one thing that it didn't restore was the RSLinx Enterprise path.

If your connecting a S7-300 PLC to a proface display, the profibus cable and connectors will work. Although your not running profibus, the wiring for MPI is the same. I have a S7-312 Siemens PLC connected to a Proface model AST3211 using th Siemens profibus cables and quick connectors and it works fine.

If your dealing with Siemens, they are going to Wincc on all of the smaller HMI units. They have a software that is called Wincc compact that will program the smaller units. The display you have was most probably programmed using the older Siemens software Protool. If the local siemens support converts the file for you, it may be wise to buy the Siemens kit for your unit. The have the software bundled with cables to program the smaller hmi units for a lower price. Otherwise, you will need to develop a plan using another manufacturers HMI. But then you have to program the entire application again for each of your lines.

Here is an AB application note I used some time ago about connecting a PanelView using Modbus with GE Series 90-30 controller. Panelview_90_30.pdf

We have one facility that utilizes Wondware software. Currently, we use version 9.5 and are working on upgrade plans for 10.0. We have not yet decided if we will upgrade only or go to version 10.0 with system platform. Wanted to ask opinions of system platform and experiences. Thanks in advance.

A standard profibus cable can be used to connect a Siemens S7-300 series processor to a proface display. The Siemens standard port on the S7-300 is Siemens MPI protocol. You can get the profibus quick connectors from Siemens as well as the profibus cable.

Please see the text below, it is an piece of a siemens article about scaling analogs on a logo. The following sample calculation demonstrates the scaling of analog measured values in LOGO! Soft Comfort. A weighing module with a range of 0kg to 10kg provides the weighing range as a proportional voltage of 0.5V to 4.7V. The following parameters must be specified for correct processing of these values in LOGO!: Gain Offset To give a clear definition of these parameters the measuring voltage put on the X axis and the weight to be measured on the Y axis of a Cartesian coordinate system. The two known points (0.5V/0kg) and (4.7V/10kg) were entered as a cross and joined with a straight line. The "Gain" parameter is calculated from the gradient of the straight lines: Gain = weighing range / measuring range = (max. weighing value - min. weighing value) / (maximum measured value - minimum measured value) The result for the present example is: Gain = ((10kg - 0kg) / (4.7V -0.5V) = 2.38 kg/V Assuming that the minimum measured value is a weight of 0kg, the offset is calculated as follows: Offset = Gain * Minimum measured value The result for the present example is: Offset = 2.38kg/V * (-0.5V) = -1.19kg Enter the value 2.38 for the "Gain" parameter in the appropriate dialog field of the analog amplifier. The offset can only be given as an integer. The value of "-1.19kg" calculated in the example above has to be multiplied by a factor of 100. The offset is then "-119 kg" which you enter in the appropriate field of the analog amplifier dialog. In order to be able to display the values in "kg" you specify "2" for "Decimals in the message text". The parameters "Minimum" and "Maximum" are calculated automatically by LOGO! Comfort.

Have you tried entering your string data in a DB block and then accessing it that way? Below is a link to a tech note from siemens that might assist you. http://support.automation.siemens.com/WW/view/en/16848975