gravitar

I wonder if you could open the programs in notepad or something and look for ASCII text.. Works most of the time when trying to figure out the contents of EPROMs anyway!

Ron- Looks like a great website to compliment a great training program. I especially appreciate that the website's focus remains on the CONTENT rather than just a means to show off somebody's HTML skillz like many people seem to want to do these days! Just wondering if you had considered a course for those of us that are proficient with controls in general and have a background with PLC5/SLC 500, but need to get up to speed with ControlLogix. I would beg, borrow, and steal to make it down to SC if you were to offer a class like that!

Just thought I'd mention to any of you that have the (mis)fortune to need to use one of these, I just finished a job that used them and I could help you get it set up if you would like. I found that the user manual is misleading, confusing, and in some places just plain false. The R-A knowledgebase wasn't much better, but I've been helping them clean that up over the last couple weeks :)

but wait it gets even better. I called tech support a number of times, and not surprisingly they couldn't dredge up anyone that knew the RB. Finally, I got a guy that said he would contact the division manager and get some assistance directly from them. He called back a couple hours later and said that the manager retired a year ago, and when he retired they closed the division! So there's noone left at A-B to support the product and I guess you're just "on your own" if you buy one. And the A-B salesman for the Ford plant couldn't believe we were still able to buy them :)

As long as you can live with half the full-scale resolution, you're fine. Not sure about the 250 ohm resistor, though. Would be interested to hear of others do this

I've got several problems with this. First of all, I have very little faith in our "justice" system's ability to sort out the bad guys from the good guys. I've got several friends and family members that work in various aspects of the legal system, and the more I learn about it the more I'm sickened by it. Sure, in some cases justice is served, but wealth and education level of the defendant, emotion, and pure random chance are big factors as well. It isn't safe to assume that just because someone is sent to jail, that they deserve to be there. the other problem is the fact that what you're talking about is the govermnent asking for more money to perform a task that they're already responsible for, and already paid to do. Think about that for a moment. Suppose you quote your jobs with an option to "contribute to operator safety". Would your customer be willing to throw in a few hundred $$ over and above the agreed price to "make the machine just a little safer"? Didn't the original quotation cover an agreed-upon level of safety? So they're paying you for it, but they won't actually get what they pay for unless you chip-in a little more? Next problem.. So let's say the state gets a windfall of cash designated for the prison system. What do you think they'll do with it? Build more prison cells and hire more staff, of course. That's an absolute guarantee. There won't be any innovative programs to motivate the youth in high-crime areas to seek higher education and good careers. Likewise, there won't be any innovative programs to train and restore the self-respect of the prison population so they'll be motivated to aim higher when they're released. No, what you'll get is a "we're getting tough on crime" slogan, room to house more criminals,and more employees on the government payroll. And then guess what, they'll have to go out and find more people to fill those cells. Can't let any of them go empty, cause then the funding might dry up. So how many people need to be in prison before you'll feel safe? What percentage of the population? Lock 'em up and keep 'em there. Then and only then, our streets will be safe. How about 25%? That should help us sleep easier at night. Of course they'll have to come up with enough laws for those people to break so that they can be locked up, but that isn't really a problem. They've been making up laws for hundreds of years (all in the name of keeping us safe of course) and they've honed that skill to perfection. Hey better yet, let's just declare everyone not already employed by the government as a "potential criminal" and lock 'em all up. But how would we pay for that? The answer has already been suggested: "Make the convics build the prisions. Make them do a job that the prision can profit from. Make them grow their own food." Sounds like a great idea to me. Yeah, others might call it a totalitarian state, but what do they know. We'll be SAFE, darn it! The problems we have in our society cannot and will not be solved by offering up more of our income to the state. All it'll do is buy you some false peace-of-mind. Go out and buy some lottery tickets instead. At least those are claimed to have some entertainment value!

I've got mixed emotions about the overlays. On one hand, the overlay Medar uses on their programming pendant totally sucks. After a couple years the membrane is all blown out and the bubble switches are exposed. To make matters worse, they silkscreened the function of the buttons right where you push them, so now you have to write on the front of it with magic marker so that people will remember the functions. But then I think back to my old Atari 400. (which I've still got by the way :) Now that was a membrane keyboard done right. I've never seen one with membrane damage or worn away lettering. I guess they knew something back in the 70s that has since been forgotten! And as far as appearance, couldn't you fancy it up with a nice mylar sticker for the front of it? You'd have to cut out holes for the buttons or just avoid the button area entirely, but I think your friend would be missing the boat if he didn't have some clever yet unobtrusive graphics on the front

I was going to suggest that you provide all the "look but don't touch" people with RSLadder and the actual programmers use RSLogix, but I just checked the RSI site and didn't see RSLadder mentioned. I wonder if they discontinued it?

there's numerous free .PDF utilities on the web. Do a google search. When you install one of them, you get a new printer driver. When you print using that driver, it asks you for a filename and it generates a .PDF file.

The first thing I would do is set up a 1747-PIC driver in RSLinx and then plug into the unused port on the AIC+. (It is an AIC+ and not a 1747-AIC, isn't it?) I'm assuming this would be the mini-DIN connector so you need a 1761-CBL-PM02 or equivalent. You should be able to see the entire network. If that doesn't work, unplug the phoenix plug so you are now just looking at the SLC. Make sure the baud rate is set correctly (usually "auto" on the AIC+) and there are no node number conflicts. If that works, try unplugging the SLC and plugging the phoenix plug back in. You should see the panelview. Make sure the node number is different from the SLC. t this point you should have a pretty high confidence level that your network is configured properly You might try doing a forum search for DH485 or AIC, because there's sure to be a lot of old posts in this forum related to the problem you're having

There's a market (on ebay) for most of that. I can tell you right now the 5/01 will go for next to nothing, the IB16s won't do much better. The OV16s probably won't do much better either. The analog card and OW16 will bring in good money. The 7 slot rack, power supply, and rack interconnect cable will do fair to good. Are they grey label (pre-1996) or white label (mid-96 to present)? People don't like grey label stuff. It sells for MUCH less. Even when it's the same series. I know, it doesn't make much sense but that's ebay. Oh, and you wouldn't happen to have the boxes would you? People think the boxes are made of gold. If you've got that magical box (and make it known in the listing) then you will make GOOD cash on your stuff. Study the listings. Sure there are highs and lows, but there is a general trend you can follow. Enough SLC 500 parts are listed that you can get a pretty good idea of what your items will sell for.

To each their oen I guess.. It's kinda funny how us A-B guys that have just recently had to start using Siemens software (thanks GM) frequently complain how the Siemens software infects your entire computer like a virus!

How recently did you purchase RSView? Have you tried explaining your situation to your A-B salesman?

Let me go off on a complete tangent here, considering the above comment. How long do you think that "technology" is going to buffer us from emerging economies? Isn't it inevitable that even developing countries are going to "automate using the best products and technology available" before too long? Hasn't this trend already begun? Do you believe that somehow we'll always be able to keep a technological "leg up" on the third world?

I'm living in the world of the RB module this week. That's about as adventuresome as I get :)

you've got to be kidding me... i have never heard of this. (and we've been doing a lot of 1400e to 1000e swapouts, too) Are you sure you aren't mistaken about this? replacing a CRT and all its deflection circuitry with an LCD panel is a pretty serious undertaking. And I'm sure a fair percentage of controls guys wouldn't know how to safeguard themselves from getting a REALLY NASTY shock from the anode cap of the CRT. If I were in a plant that had CRT-based HMIs, I'd get a rebuild schedule in place for them. 1400e's just aren't old enough to need to be scrapped. My experience with 30+ year old video game monitors bears this out. Replace the electrolytic caps, horizontal output transistor, and flyback transformer and you've bought yourself several more years of productive use. The CRT itself is usually one of the last things to fail. the only thing you can't correct this way is burn-in.. that's permanent!

This has been a very interesting discussion. I've learned a lot about ethernet. Let me play the devil's advocate again though. Does this device do anything that couldn't be done (or would be highly impractical) in software on a notebook? If I follow the discussion, the target audience might be those that wouldn't be comfortable using a notebook, but I dare say their numbers are dwindling.

i think they're both VGA 640x480x16

I guess I can live with the multiple outputs in series. AS LONG AS THEY'RE ON THE RIGHT. The first time I get called in to troubleshoot a program that has outputs interspersed with inputs, i'm hangin' it up

A 1400e app will drop right into a 1000e. You don't even have to tell it that you made the change, it'll use it as-is. A-B even makes an adapter plate to make the 1000e fit the 1400e cutout. Of course, a good metalworker could that part of it themselves too. I would bet on the 1000e being available for a good long while. As long as the Big 3 stay in business anyway. They love their PLC-5s and enhanced panelviews.

I guess I fall into the "occasional dabbler" category :) So if I'm understanding this, the handheld device acts as BootP server, which meant it can dynamically assign IP addresses to the other devices on the network. (is that right?) And, it also has a "Who Listen" function (for you old-school A-B guys) to let you sniff out IP addresses before you plug in and potentially create a conflict. (am I right on that one too?) I guess I'm not sure how practical that would be. Now granted, I know very little about Ethernet, but it seems to me that you would want the BootP server to be a somewhat permanent device on the network, no? And what is the SOP when it comes to plant ethernet networks? Do corporate specs include IP addresses set aside that are reserved for progeamming terminals? Kind-of like how you can walk up to a DH+ or DH485 and be reasonably sure that node 0 is open? Or do you just never know and have to have some other way of verifying that you won't create a node number conflict?

Personally I have zero experiencewith non-destructove testing, but are you familiar with this process: http://www.magnaflux.com/index.asp This is what engine rebuilders use to detect cracks in engine block cores, which is how I know about the process. Not sure how well it would work in your application

well if what they say about oysters is true, the misses will be happy you were brave enough to try them :)

Wow.. THAT is ugly! I guess they allow rungs like that to quickly identify who has paid their dues in the maintenance department and who hasn't :)

happy b-day chack-meister! and i'm convinced that "old" is just a state of mind. they hired in another programmer right after me.. he's in his late 50s (and he'd have no chance of fooling anyone). But.. he's about as "young" and forward-thinking as anyone i've met. He drives a toyota prius (in detroit no less.. tha takes some ba**s), carries an MP3-playing cellphone, and actually is excited about windows vista. And oh, by the way, he's got a beautiful 26-year-old wife. Compared to that "old" man, I'm ready for the grave!