Steve G

MrPLC Member
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Everything posted by Steve G

  1. This may not be the right place to post this but sense I am using AB hardware I will post it here. I have some new flow meters that came in and they seem to have come in with a HART 4 to 20 signal. They were not requested with this type of signal and the hardware I have on the system is a 1794-IE8. My question is can I wire the 4 to 20 HART signal to a standard 4 to 20 ma input and will it work, or am I going to have to add another input card for these flow meter. I have only once had to deal with HART and it was on a system that was already installed and I just had to add some status bits into the software. Thanks for any help on this topic
  2. I was wondering if anyone has used leaky wire communications on a Allen Bradley system. The system we are looking at using is using a Prosoft setup, two RLX2-IHNF-A units. I wanted to know how reliable is it and if there has been any issues with using leaky wire in a PLC system. Also, if there are any issues with the communications, how easy is it to troubleshoot.
  3. What GSM Unit are you working with
  4. After the power outage what are the LED's doing on the front of you PLC, Network adapter in the PLC rack and also the LED's on the 1734 adapters. Also when you go online with the PLC do you have any errors on the adapters, Are the network switches ok after the power outage or are the faulted. There could be a number of issues here so more info is needed to help you.
  5. 1746-hsce

    Good, all you need to do now is set the soft reset bit in the HSC card this will reset the count and allow you to take your new sample. I do believe the bit is bit 7 for the soft reset, look at the manual and on page 27 it tells you how to reset the counter. I would reset the counter after you have moved an inch.
  6. 1746-hsce

    if your steel or weld is going to be the same length each time, then why do you not find out how many pules or counts is required for say an inch. Then just add the inches to gather and after a predetermined number of inches open the gate.
  7. Good morning to you all, I am in the middle of a project were I need to send and receive some data, to and from a SLC PLC and a Contrologix PLC via the serial post. I am having some issues setting this up and am unable to get the right data sent and received. My question is can I use MSG instruction with the serial ports of the two PLC's or will I have to Use ASCII read and rights to accomplish this. If I have to use serial read and write commands what is the best way to do this. Thanks will all the help.
  8. Thanks for all the help with this, I was able to get it working. I messed up at had the wrong communication path set. I was using 1,0 and it should have been 2,1. This is the address for the serial port on the L23 PLC. Thanks again
  9. integer registers, i.e. N158:0.
  10. Thanks Ken I currently have a SLC 504 and Compact Logix L23, I guess one of my problem has been the serial setting. I will change them to what you have told me they need to be and then give it a try. When I tried the SLC type Read and write functions I have received the error not such register in target device, or something to that nature. I have also tryed to use acii string read and write to accomplish this but with no luck Thanks again and will post the outcome after I try your settings
  11. What I do is use a series of ASCII inserts and a status marker to build the email message, then I send the message to the first recipient and clear the string that i have used for the message and start setting up the next one in the same manor. When I need to do this I create a UDT with all email addresses I have to send to and all messages I need to send. The UDT also includes some status bits to set and reset for who has had the message sent to them. I also use a simple ADD function to add 1 to a register every few second and use this for a rolling trigger for the messages. Once all recipients have had the message sent to them I clear all their status bits and look to see if there are any other messages that need to be sent. It can get some what complicated so I use the status marker to keep track of what is going on. Be low is a example of what I am talking about, hope it makes scene. If message_needed_trigger EQU 1 and one of the recipients sent bits are 0 then if email_MSG.EN is 0 then ( this would be the MSG instructions control tag) MOV 1 to status marker if status_marker EQU 1 then CLR email_message and MOV 2 to status_marker if status marker EQU 2 then if recipient_one_message_sent is 0 then insert email_address_1 into email_message and MOV 3 to status_marker (the email address will contain the To: dan@xyz.com From: systemPLC@xyz.com Subject:) if status_marker EQU 3 then if message_rolling_trigger is 1 then insert message_1 into email_message start at email_message.LEN and MOV 4 to status_marker (now the message is complete and ready to be sent) if status_marker EQU to 4 then MOV email_message.LEN to email_MSG.REQ_LEN and MOV 5 to status_marker ( this is when we move the message length into the MSG control tags length) After all then is done and the status_marker is EQU to 5 the message get triggered and sent. On the .DN bit I do a little house keeping i.e. clear the status_marker and set the bit that the recipient 1 has received the message. I hope this makes scene and I apologize if it does not, sometime I have a hard time explaining things. This is the basic setup I use, and should get you started, I also program a way for a user to insert and enable recipients through an HMI. If you need more help let me know.
  12. Thanks for the help, I went and installed it and it works fine, no filter needed. I also called the manufacturer of the flow meter and they told be the HART protocol was only used for the configuration device you can buy with the unit and a standard 4 to 20 ma input was just fine to use. Thanks again everyone.
  13. just to put in my two cents, one of the best things about the software is the user add-on instructions. This allows to to create a piece of code that you may use again and again, not having to write the same ten or more rungs of code again and again. Say you have ten motors all with the same control hardware and do the same function, the add-on instruction allows you to drag and drop the same code for all ten motor and not have to right code for each one of them
  14. Has anyone out there used Ethernet through slip ring and if so how dependable is it.
  15. I could be wrong but I am pretty sure there is not a was to get the PLC to talk Mod bus TCP/IP to you device. The Prosoft MVI69-MNET is a good unit to use if you can, I have used a few of them and they are not that hard to setup and get working and long as you have the device's Mod bus memory map.
  16. As Ken stated it will not affect your RsNetwork. There is a tag in the bottom left hand corner of your working area that is labeled monitor or diagnostics, if you click there is will open the tab and will tell you that the network monitor is not installed. Other than that there is no effect on the software
  17. The network monitor is just a additional piece of software you have the option to buy, it is integrated into RsNetworx. It was installed when you installed RsNetworx but it seems you did not buy the activation for the network monitor. There are no problems with the install just the network monitor will run under a grace period and then not be available to use.
  18. Just pulled up the manual, to make sure i was not smoking something. I to do not see a reset or config button on the card, just the switches to set baud rate and node address.
  19. SLC5/04 recipes

    I am pretty sure what Mickey is saying is that you will set up your registers and then call the data into your program when as you say B3:xx is set. The file types do not matter. So if you have a recipe called rec1 and you need some int registers and some real registers then label all files that pertain to the rec1 a similar name, e.i. rec1Int or rec1real. Then when you need rec1 set a bit and move all the date in those registers into you program for use.
  20. S7-315DP Error

    I have a system with a PLC, two drives and a remote I/O rack attache to it. A few days ago the PLC faulted and had a SF light on and the BF light flashing. The last time this happened one of the power rail units that link the remote I/O to the PLC went bad. I ordered a new one and replaced the older of the two, but that did not solve the problem with the system. Right now the PLC has the above light on and the two drives have a BF light flashing, The power rail units have the SF on and the remote I/O has a BF flashing. I checked the cable and rails that go from one power rail unit to the other and it is all good not shorts or grounded wires. I have a spare cable for the Profibus and so I went through and replaced all the cables, one by one, on the network to see if one of those was bad, still no luck. I took the connectors from one of the drives and checked it over, it seemed good so I swapped all the connectors on each device to see if one of them has gone bad and again not luck. When I go online with the PLC on the MPI port I can see the PLC but none of the Profibus nodes can be reached, they all have a red error box on them including the PLC. After looking at the Siemens web site it told me to re-download the hardware config file to the PLC and that should get rid of the SF light. I did as the web site instructed me to do but still no luck. I am at a loss and am at the point of replacing the CPU of the PLC to see if that fixes the problem, OR HIT IT WITH A HAMMER AND SEE IF THAT HELPS. Any help would be great Thanks, Steve
  21. Ethernet through slip rings

    Thanks for all the posts and I will post the results and any issues with the system if there are any for anyone interested.
  22. Ethernet through slip rings

    I agree and have voices my concerns with the way they want to run the comm's through slip ring so I guess i will see when the equipment gets here and will post anything that goes wrong. I my experience like you have stated in the beginning they will work fine, but over time I think I will end up having to go to another method. The only thing I can think of, why they do not want to use a wireless solution is that the I/O attached to the system will have some AB safety rated I/O. Thanks for the input.
  23. Ethernet through slip rings

    I would look into that but the equipments is being made by someone else, I thought I would ask the forum to see if anyone had done this and what problems they have had. I have ran DeviceNet, ControlNet, and RIO through rings and have had problems with all of the above, due to the machines movement. So Ethernet I am guessing would be that same, but the question is will cause more problems that the above mentioned.
  24. Why dont you just use a small relay and switch the input through the relay
  25. S7-300 FC issue

    I am not very knowledgeable about Siemens but know enough to get around and do a few changes. My question is a couple of days ago I had a drive that stopped working on a system. After checking all hardware, I noticed that the main power relay would not pull in and the enable to the drive would not come on. No faults in the system as I could tell. I went online with the PLC and back traced to the FC block that was triggering the drive contactor and enable output. The trigger was a set of inputs in a & statement that triggered the drive. In the FC block the bits were turning on the off triggering a set and reset bit so as soon as the set was done the reset occurred and never triggered the drive relay, but the inputs that triggered the bits were solid. Thinking there was a wiring issue I check voltage and have a steady 24VDC to the inputs I then though that maybe the card was bad so I changed the inputs in the code to an input that was not used and put 24VDC to the input. We I looked at the FC block it was doing the same thing as before, the FC block bit was turning on then off and the inputs that triggered the bit were steady. With all the hardware and the wiring checked and good I am very confused as to why this is happening. Hope this makes sense and if anyone could give be something to look at further that would be great.