Toot Uncommon

That sounds really good and I'll bet AB wishes it could kill IA right now. Yet, in my situation I don't think I can use it. I'm just a tech and I don't have much pull with engineering or IT around here. If I do this, it's going to have to be with what I already have. Excel and RSlinx pro are already installed. The only reason I thought VB might work is by making a small executable that doesn't have to be installed, yet would do the trick. When you say it breaks, what do you mean by that? Just doesn't work? What would be the worst case with the project I envision? We're not talking about writing garbage to the tags and having the shuttle moving warp speed off the rails and into the operator, are we?

In my situation, added expense is not an option. I really need to learn what I can about the Excel to rslinx interface. If it really cannot be made reliable with Excel, maybe I could make an app with VB? I wonder how much different/more difficult that would be? I bought a copy of VB 6 from a thrift store for $20 or so. I haven't had time to mess with it yet, but maybe that's the route I should go???

Is this the model EWON you have? My link If so, looks like you'll need the talk2M software it mentions in order to do the connection. You'll not need any ethernet for the L31. Might there be a pc on your lan anywhere with that talk2M software installed?

We have a machine that frequently has to have it's shuttle positions offset by a mm or 2. This happens at changeover. I believe there are 32 position that are not all used. We are now manually offsetting each position one at a time using the hmi and a sequence of "save", "are you sure" "ok" and such that is very time consuming. What I would like to do is mount an indicator and fixed flag to measure what offset we need (instead of eyeballing), and have an excel sheet where I can plug in that offset, hit a button and have it write the new position values to all the tags. Trouble is I'm new to the Excel to RSlinx thing and I'm having trouble with some of the generalized guidance I've found here and elsewhere on the web. What I have so far is roughly based on what I found here: http://www.plcdev.com/connecting_controllogix_excel His array is 10 values, mine is 32. I have 32, but for each of those 32 points there are 6 sub values and I only need the one of the six: And, the ones I need (as shown above) are nested 4 levels down in the tag tree (is it called a tree?) Here's the code I have for excel: Private Sub CommandButton1_Click() rslinx = OpenRSLinx() 'Loop through reading the CLX array tags and 'put the values into cell For i = 0 To 1 'First the array of REALs 'Get the value form the DDE link realdata = DDERequest(rslinx, "CURRENT_PART.CELL_B_SHUTTLE_POINTS(0).Position[" & i & "],L1,C1") 'If there is an error, display a message box If TypeName(data) = "Error" Then If MsgBox("Error reading tag CURRENT_PART.CELL_B_SHUTTLE_POINTS[0].POSITION[" & i & "]. " & _ "Continue with Read?", vbYesNo + vbExclamation, _ "Error") = vbNo Then Exit For Else 'No error, place data in cell Cells(2 + i, 4) = realdata End If 'Now the array of DINTs 'Gent the value from the DDE link dintdata = DDERequest(rslinx, "CURRENT_PART.CELL_B_SHUTTLE_POINTS[1].POSITION[" & i & "],L1,C1") 'If there is an error, display a message box If TypeName(data) = "Error" Then If MsgBox("Error reading tag CURRENT_PART.CELL_B_SHUTTLE_POINTS[1].POSITION[" & i & "]. " & _ "Continue with Read?", vbYesNo + vbExclamation, _ "Error") = vbNo Then Exit For Else 'No error, place data in cell Cells(2 + i, 5) = dintdata End If Next i 'Terminate the DDE connection DDETerminate rslinx End Sub Private Sub Worksheet_SelectionChange(ByVal Target As Range) End Sub Private Function OpenRSLinx() On Error Resume Next 'Open the connection to RSLinx OpenRSLinx = DDEInitiate("RSLINX", "EXCEL_TEST") 'Check if the connection was made If Err.Number <> 0 Then MsgBox "Error Connecting to topic", vbExclamation, "Error" OpenRSLinx = 0 'Return false if there was an error End If End Function When I hit the button, nothing happens. No error, no nothing. I do have rslinx pro and I setup the EXCEL_TEST topic as required. I can enter the hard code formulas and get the values that way, though not consistently. But that at least proves I have a connection. The hard code I'm talking about is from the link tutorial I mentioned earlier in the comments at the bottom: =RSLINX|EXCEL_TEST!'CURRENT_PART.CELL_B_SHUTTLE_POINTS[1].POSITION' That in a random cell will actually display the position from the tag. What am I doing wrong?

Armadillo: Summer bronchitis. That stinks. Take your time. No problem. Kaiser: I think my initial thought for not doing any numbers was the I/O I assumed it would take up. There is no analog output on the plc. But, we do have other machines that are limited in how much fail info they give, and they may have more i/o available. I may look into that in the future if any of them become as aggravating as this one was. Thanks. AJZ: Can you give detail on how to synchronize with the clock bit?

Nobody wants to give this one a shot?

Sent you a message with the goods. Does this (your request for the entire ladder) mean the subroutine looks ok by itself? I thought for sure I had about 5-7 times as much logic as is really necessary.

Aha! Thanks.

newpageboba's solution works. It remembers. I did try the righ-click -- properties -- run maximized, but there was no such "run maximized" option. I'm running xp pro sp3. -toot

One of our machines would only do a single alarm for every fault. There are dozens of things that can go wrong and troubleshooting can be very difficult when your only clue is "machine fault." 'Replace stuff til it's fixed' had sometimes been the troubleshooting method used, especially for those less familiar with the machine and with ladder troubleshooting. So, I made a subroutine, installed 3 lights and hooked them into 3 of the available outputs on the plc (SLC 5/03). There are 3 stations on the machine and 6 or 7 things that can go wrong at each station. My logic takes each fault and makes one of the 3 lights blink some number of times according to a fault indication reference sheet I posted at the machine. I know my logic is over done and sloppy, but it works. The only trouble I've found is that every once in a while--maybe 10% of all fails--I get half blinks at the beginning and end of each blink sequence. I put a note on the reference sheet to treat these two half blinks as one. Yet, it is best if I can perfect it and avoid any potential confusion. I would appreciate anyone who would take a look at my logic and help me understand how I can eliminate the half blinks. I could not attach the xps document (ladder), but you can view it here: www.4micah.net/blinks2.xps I was able to attach the fault reference sheet. faultreference.doc

The program always opens up non-maximized. When I maximize it, the ladder and navigation windows maintain the same size. I have to select >Window>Arrange>Default Project>OK to get it right. Anybody know how to get it to behave right upon opening?

What is N7:20?

So basically, a failing I/O module caused your 1756-ENBT (in the same rack) to go haywire on the network dropping out all 20 machines on the network. WOW! I'm not sure adding an extra 1756-ENBT would be better. What makes you think the failing I/O module wouldn't have caused both 1756-ENBT's to do the same thing (assuming you go to that config)? An alternative might be to give each machine a 20+ port switch and give each machine its own subnet. This would have narrowed your issue down to just the one machine while keeping the rest of your network(s) alive.

I know this thread is old, but I thought this might be valuable to add for anyone in my situation. Reading these posts (and the linked ones) it was not obvious where the serenum.sys file was or where I could go to find the SP2 version of the file. Here's how I fixed it. Since I had trouble finding the sp2 version, I did some searching around on the web and found it here: http://dllexedown.com/bbs/board.php?bo_tab...&wr_id=1948 I'm unfamiliar with that site, but the file checked good on virustotal.com. If that link doesn't work, I put it on my personal site here: www.4micah.net/serenum.sys I simply backed up the live version of serenum.sys by renaming it with a .bak extension, then copied the sp2 version into the folder (windows/system32/drivers). It asked if I wanted to overwrite the existing one. I said yes. Now my PIC works fine in SP3.

What exactly happens when it fails? Does the usb device drop out of Windows, or do you only have to restart the driver in AB software? We also have had that issue with usb to serial. One of the engineers here has a new laptop like yours. In our case the driver has to be reconfigured in rslinx--once about every minute and a half of use. Since it isn't my laptop, I didn't troubleshoot. I recommend you reconfigure the driver in rslinx and set the baud rate very low--as low as your usb-to-serial adapter will allow. You'll need to set your usb-to-serial adapter lower first, then do the driver. Set it as low as possible, then if it works, you can raise as high as will not cause drop outs. If that doesn't work, they have pcmcia to serial devices (google "pcmcia serial"). I would think they'd be less susceptable to noise like this. Though you may not have a pcmcia slot either...