Steve Bailey

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Posts posted by Steve Bailey

  1. Posted

    There is no migration path from the Series Six BIU module to the Rx3i. The Series Six went obsolete in the early 1990s. Your drives are most likely just as old. The Rx3i supports many different networking methods, but it is unlikely your drives can be retrofitted with interface modules for today's options. The ties between GE's PLC division and its drives division were much closer back when the Series Six and the DC300 were their respective flagship product lines.

  3. Posted

    From page 4-7 of GEK-90842, E02 is "Fault in Series One program structure such as an input reference used as an output. Your response depends on whether your CPU is a Series One or a Series One Plus. If a Series One, just press "CLR" and the address of the logic element that generated will be displayed. If a Series One Plus, you press "CLR", then "SRCH", then "CLR". After locating the address, press "NXT" to display the instruction.

    I just powered up a Series One Plus that has been sitting on the shelf for years. I had to remove all of the I/O modules before I could get any diagnostics. The "BATT" LED was lit indicating a dead battery, but I did not get an E02 error.

    Series One components are still available from Automation Direct as the DL305.

  5. Posted

    Which version of Proficy and which alignment tool are you using? The only time I've seen it resize text is when I change the size of the object.

  6. Posted

    You're right, I was confusing Joe's post with yours. Sorry.

    What is the employer/employee split on the insurance premiums and how extensive is your plan. I realize that health insurance may not be a big influence on new college graduates unless they have current needs for services or are planning to start a family.

  7. Posted

    For the last seventeen years I've been self employed, so I may be out of date. My first impression was that the PTO is very low. I have never worked for a place where vacation, sick, and personal time off was combined. My experience as always been that vacation was one block of PTO and sick/personal was another. Vacation was always use it or lose it. Unused sick/personal could roll over into the next year subject to limits.

    When you couple the low PTO with a health insurance plan that by your own admission isn't much more than the minimum required to be able to say you offer health insurance, I'm not really surprised that you're not getting a lot of applicants.

    If I were just graduating and comparing your company to another, your salary offer would have to be significantly higher to compensate for the paltry PTO and so-so health insurance.

  8. Posted

    Your best choice will be a brand that you can easily obtain in your area and for which you are comfortable with the level of available support. Also give consideration to the potential end users of your machine and the availability of spare parts and support for them.

  9. Posted

    The best PLC for you is the one that fits your needs, whose programming software is easy for you to master, whose technical support meets your expectations. Note that it might not be the best PLC for me. In fact, it might not even be the best PLC for your employer or customer. When that is the case, you just have to suck it up and deal with it.

    Consider this. If there is one single best PLC, why are there so many different people making them? I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you mean by "lifetime span over high tech feature".

    1 person likes this

  11. Posted

    Most of the people who post here and on other forums are reluctant to provide answers to homework questions. Show us what you've done and we'll help steer you in the right direction. To start, in your own words, what is the meaning of the word "resolution" in the context of your homework question?

  13. Posted

    In hardware configuration you can set up low and high alarm levels. The alarms appear in the PLC's IO Fault table. Since the procedure to read the fault tables from ladder logic is somewhat awkward, it is probably easier to add ladder logic to detect low and high levels of your choice and set bits to indicate alarm conditions.

  14. Posted

    A worn screen could cause a false signal to the PLC. I have seen it happen.

    The more likely mode of failure is that the screen fails to send the signal in response to the touch. When that happens, the operator tends to hit the screen harder which accelerates the progression to the point of ultimate failure.

    It is also possible that the local HMI and the remote SCADA are sending conflicting signals to the PLC.

  15. Posted

    Hard to offer any suggestions without seeing the code or knowing what hardware you're dealing with. Don't overlook the possibility of an HMI panel writing to the bit. Are the Auto and Manual signals coming from an HMI or are they hard wired inputs? If they are coming from the HMI, what action is programmed for the HMI objects that control the signals?

  16. Posted

    What are you planning to display the data on?

    Serial communications isn't fast enough to sample AC waveform data in real-time. The Satec unit will have to have some means to sample and hold data which can be read later. Presumably the data will be stored in locations accessible to Modbus.

  17. Posted

    For the sake of argument, let's assume your PLC is reading a 32-bit integer at Modbus address 400000 and places that value at %R00001 in PLC memory. The lower 16 bits will reside in %R00001. The upper 16 bits will reside in %R00002. In Cimplicity you will need to define a 32-bit integer that reads from PLC memory %R00001. Because the point in Cimplicity is a 32-bit integer, Cimplicity will take care of requesting the data from both %R00001 and %R00002.

    However, based on your first post, I think the data in the SATEC may be in BCD format. If that is the case, you need to read two 16-bit integers from the SATEC, convert each integer from 16-bit BCD to 32-bit integer and then multiply the 32-bit integer that represents the upper four digits by 10000 and to that add the 32-bit integer that represents the lower four digits.

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  18. Posted

    You should make sure your point in Cimplicity is defined as a 32-bit integer.

    But I'm a little confused. In your first post you said that you are reading the data from the Satec using Cimplicity. Your screen captures indicate that you are using a GE PLC. Which device is the Modbus RTU master? Is the PLC in charge of reading the Satec data? Does Cimplicity read from the PLC? Or does Cimplicity read from the SATEC and write to the PLC?

    1 person likes this

  19. Posted

    You're acting like a spoiled child, flooding the forum with posts in the mistaken belief that it will somehow generate more responses to your question.

    In the GE PLC, a 32-bit integer resides in two consecutive %R addresses. You appear to only be displaying one of them.

     

  21. Posted

    Try contacting Allen Wells at Cimtec Automation. He was previously their most experienced person for the Series Six, although I understand he has been reassigned to other duties. He may be able to put you in touch with someone who can help. His email address will follow the same format as that for Kimberly Lewis.