Water Ratz

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About Water Ratz

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  1. Controls Integrator Selection

    Thanks for your input. I know my question may have seemed ridiculous at first read. Let me further explain my cunnundrum. The particular integrator in question is basically being forced upon me by the person I report to. I am working in a consulting capacity on a medium sized controls retro-fit project. After a year of working with this integrator, they came to the bargaining table asking to borrow programming software from the company I am working for. The requirement for the integrator to DO the actual programming is not new information. This has been part of the job requirement all along. I was absolutely incredulous at this request. Never in my career have I had such a ridiculous request presented me. My superiors apparently see nothing wrong with handing over a couple licenses for RSLogix5000 to this integrator. Thanks to all that responded.
  2. I would like to pose a question to all who are involved in these forums. My question is regarding the selection process for choosing a Controls Integrator fo ra medium sized project. I realize by asking this question I may be opening myself up to ribbing, ridicule and outright jabs. With that said, here goes..... When selecting a controls integration company, I would think most people would look at things like: - What types of jobs has this company done in the past? - How many engineers does this company employ? - Does this company have experience with our PLC brand and type? - How successful has this company been in the past? These seem to be necessary questions to get through in order to select the best integrator for the job. Now the shocking question: After passing all the above listed tests, would any sane person have to ask themeslves: - Does this company OWN a copy of the programming software in order to complete this job? I would appreciate any and all comments on this. Thank You
  3. As of now this has turned into a real project, meaning the bean counters have allocated the $$$ to do the project. The original plan for this cpnversion was to build an entirely NEW control panel housing the new Logix PLC's and I/O racks. All communications to remote racks will be redundant ControlNet. The theory is to have the new control panel installed in a location in close proximity to teh existing Reliance AutoMate syste. We will cable-over from the new control panel to the old panel via AB pre-made I/O cables. AT the start of the conversion, we would then replace each Reliance I/O Rail wil a pre-fab terminal strip that would be labeled exactly the same as the Reliance Module. The new strip would then take the place of the Reliance module. This move effectively extends the field wiring to the new control panel. We are moving ahead with this design premise, but still wondering if there is anyone out there that has actually DONE a conversion similar to this.
  4. Hey all, Was wondering if anybody here has any experience with converting an existing Reliance AutoMate system over to a ControlLogix platform. The current system is roughly 2,000 I/O points which runs a process that is used 24/7. The challenge is to make this conversion happen in 7 days or less. I have talked to a few people on how to pull this off but am wondering if there is anybody out there that has direct experience with doing a conversion like this.
  5. Best Ethernet RFID

    I have used a system made by RFID, Inc. Their system uses active tags which have an advertised battery life of 5-10 years depending on the severity of the environment. The readers are "tunable" meaning you can adjust their sensitivity. With the readers set to MAX range, they will read approximately 50' away. With all the specs out of the way, now come the caveats. The biggest issue I ran into with this system was if you have multiple trucks residing within the read range, there is no way to discren which truck is which. So, if you have some means of corralling the trucks such that only one truck will ever be in range at a time, then you are golden. Another issue can be interference from other steel objects. Make sure you do lots and lots of testing before rolling out a system like this. Using RFID in long distance reads can be very frustrating. Hope this helps.
  6. Deciding on a controller

    For what its worth, I would look at Ultrasonic sensors. Units made by Banner Engineering have the capability of reaching out around 25 feet. I have used these sensors successfully in applications where I am trying to detect large lift trucks.
  7. Hey all, I just finished banging my bloody head against the wall for over a week and thought I would share in the hopes that OTHERS won't have to endure what I just did. The problem arose when a customers' RSView32 system started having "wireframing" issues. Actually, this system is comprised of (2) SLC-5/05 PLC's and (3) RSView32 computer systems. I went through all th enormal steps of trying to find a single culprit that could be dragging the network down. By disconnecting one or two of the RSView32 computers, the problem SEEMED to almost go away, but not entirely. We ended up running a piece of network analysis software on one of the RSView machines to see if we could find out WHO was causing all the errors on the network. Lo and behold, we were getting LOTS of packet errors from BOTH of the SLC-5/05 PLC's. After swapping out one of the PLC's, all the errors from that IP address ended. At that point I had an "AHA! moment" and thought, Hmmmmmmm, I wonder if the problem was simply solved by powering down the PLC. Sure enough, after powering down BOTH PLC's, NO MORE packet errors. Obviosly something had come down the CAT-5 cable at some point and confused the ethernet ports on the PLC's. Since both of these PLC's are on a UPS, they NEVER get shut down. ANyways, just thought I'd share this little tidbit. Hope it helps someone else out!
  8. Hey all, I have been reading a lot of your posts and this seems like a MUCH better format for exchanging information that A-B's knowledgebase. This is my 1st posted question, so here goes.... In RSView32, I would like to grab the System date & time (string) when a particular digital tag turns on. I am very confused as to how to go about this. Do I use an ALARM EVENT? Do I write a MACRO? Confused in Michigan.....
  9. I just wanted to add a little tidbit here regarding comms to SLC-5/05. I realize your particular app was using PLC-5, but thought this may help someone thats having the same difficulty as I had. http://rockwellautomation.custhelp.com/cgi...p?p_faqid=25915 We had (2) SLC-5/05's being querried by (3) RSView32 stations. Each RSView station was requesting between 5000 and 10000 tags worth of data from the two processors. When I brought the 3rd RSView station online, everything came to a screeching halt. The link listed above talks about a COMMS request bit. Setting bit S:2/15 to 0 solved our probems. A word of caution, our PLC's were ONLY being used as data concentrators. They had no real-world I/O to handle. This may be a consideration in other applications. Hope this helps someone. I lost 3 solid days over this little snag.