becs

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About becs

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  • Gender Female
  • Location Ontario
  • Country Canada
  1. 9030 CPU372 losing settings on power loss

    Oh, and the only thing I've changed since last summer has been the power supply. Before on power down the memory wouldn't be retained even though it hada fresh battery for it's battery backup.
  2. I have a CPU372 Plus that I'm trying to change the IP address to. I can change the address, but when I cycle the power it reverts to the old one. I am also having this problem with the logic, but when I was involved with commissioning this machine last summer and making logic changes I don't remember having to do anything special when downloaded the program. All my changes from last summer took. I have tried the option of writing to the flash, but I always get a write error when I do this, either the flash is not there or isn't configured properly. Last summer when commissioning I remember getting this error message too. Questions: Does this CPU have internal flash or do you have to buy a seperate flash card? Is there something when I'm downloading that I'm screwing up? Thanks!
  3. I've been having a problem with the GE CPU-372 losing it's brain during a power loss. I'm not sure the age of the PLC, but judging from the age of the rest of the machine it's fairly old. I decided to change out the power supply. During the change out the power was down to the PLC for at least a half hour. Because of this I was very surprised to go back online to the PLC upon power up and find my program intact. The only explaination I can think for this is that the CPU has some internal capcitance that held for the 5 min it took me to swap the power supply and backup battery. Does anyone know if this is the case?
  4. I don't need something where I can open my backups in their appropriate editing software, I just need a system that's happy to hand me a file from a server to my local machine. I need a program that doesn't care what the file extension is. Russ - I set up a Proficy system years ago with another company. Super slick, we setup the front end with a HTML user interface and wrote the scripts to automatically launch the correct editing software and the file we selected. That was back in 2001 I think though so I'm not sure how much the software has changed. Also, I really don't need anything that complicated at this new plant. The most important thing is the version control. As long as I can keep track and access previous versions I should be good to go.
  5. So I'm looking at trying to organize the backup programs in my plant. Huge variety of controllers, want software that: 1) has version tracking/ability to look at previous versions. 2) can organize files into subsections of the plant/per machine. 3) can be used on multiple computers pointed towards a single server (and hopefully not spend a fortune on licences). 4) basic function of Check In/Out, Get, etc. 5) can put in notes when you check for the latest version change. I think there's a number of different software packages that can do this for me. One mentions was Visual Safe Source, but it would be nice to have something made more for PLC, HMI and drive files. I have recently looked at FTVersionTrak from FasTrak and it looks like it will do eveything I'm interested in but I would like to look at a few different pieces of software before purchasing.
  6. Yes, I think it's a hrad thing to get a handle on. The system I used built in Cimplicity Manager was really slick, but I don't think I want to get that fancy. Mostly I'm looking for something that will require Check-In/Out and handle versioning. JRoss - I looked at VSS a little, it certainly has the structure that I'm looking for. Does it handle all the random extensions you load into it from your backups? I assume that the SharePoint system that you have in place and the VSS system are totally seperate?
  7. Our company is trying to implement Sharepoint, which is a microsoft product made for handling and sotring documents. After initial talks with the IT people implementing the system my boss and I were convinced that we should also store our program backups from the floor (PLC programs, etc). Well, months later I start storing my files here, and it seems that it can't handle files other than .doc, .xml, etc, very well. The IT person doesn't seem interested in trying to help me make it work either. At another plant, a long long time ago, I was in charge of implimeting Cimplicity Manager as a backup and retore interface. It was based on listings in a database that would point to the correct files on a specified server. You could also scripts to automatically launch the correct software to run the file and such. At this new plant I'm just saving all my files on some server space allocated and working with Windows Explorer. Even though I'm the only one who ever uses these files it can still be kinda sloppy. At your company how are you dealing with file backups? I'm trying to figure out a better way to do this that's still economical.
  8. OB121 Fault

    I wanted to test if an output on an aux rack was addressed how I suspected. Instead of forcing the output bit high from either the hardware config or a vat table I wrote a simple line of logic in the FC where I would be using this output. A M30.0 = Q2.2 Neither bit is currently being used in the program. I was going to modify M30.0 between high and low and monitor the output on the rack. I downloaded the new FC, and my test seemed to fail. It wasn't until I was handing the machine back to the operator did I notice that the PLC was faulted and I had an OB121 fault. I hadn't saved the changes in the FC yet so I downloaded the original and cleared the fault. So I've never seen anything like this before. I didn't add a new block, the addresses in the PLC go much higher than M30.0. What are some of the other possible causes for this fault? Are there some other things I should check? Thanks
  9. Last week an electrician accidently broke pcmk connector on our 1784-PCM4 cable. As I went through our cables to see if we had a replacement I found another 1784-PCM4 cable.....with another broken connector. I ordered a 1747-UIC converter as a replacement, but it seems a shame that I have two useless (and expensive!) cables just sitting here. I thought if I could just find a couple PCM connector ends I could repair them, but I'm not having much luck on the internet. Any one else ever repair these cables themselves?
  10. I have connected to my TI525 cpu, can see the program, but when I try to save PLC (aux function 60) I get the fault message: Function not avalible - load-only version. Looking up the fault in the programming book: "The selected write function is not avalible because this mode of TISOFT is read-only......" So I have a read only version of the software? Is there a way of not making it read only or do I need to find some new software?
  11. I guess that's where my hessitation comes in. I've mostly used Step 7 over the past few years and the more I use it the better it becomes. I know all about the hessitation to switch from AB to Siemens though. The more I play around with the Siemens ES software the crankier I get. My main issus is labeling anything. Not that the RSNetWorx is amazing, but with the size of the program I need to write it's starting to be impossible to follow. It's hard to say if I'm missing something or not though. I still have to talk with my Siemens rep, give him a chance to convince me. We'll see.
  12. I am upgrading a machine to be compliant to provincial safety standards and planning to use a programmable safety controller rather than a pile of safety relays. I've been looking at the AB SmartGuard 600 and the Siemens 3RK3 MSS. The previous controls engineer already put a Siemens MSS in and we already have the software, while the software for for the SmartGuard is free under RSNetWorx (can use in demo mode as long as you're 6 nodes or under). I don't really have any experiance with either. It's a bit more of a pain to get into the logic for the SmartGuard, but once there seems easier to break up and follow. I'm probably missing stuff with the MSS programming, but it certainly doesn't seem as user friendly. I would like to go with the SmartGuard, but already having one MSS is holding me back....but if I'm going to make a change in what we'll be using in the future this is the time to do it. Anyone have experiance with either/both of these controllers? Pros and Cons? Thanks, Rebecca
  13. S7 300 delays on AC signals

    Timing I'm not too worried about. I am limited to where I can put the conveyor sensor so I already assume that the conveyor and the missfeed signals will not happen at the same time. I set a bit on the rising edge of the conveyor sensor and then reset either when I see the falling edge of the missfeed sensor or if I have two or more pulses from the conveyor sensor without a missfeed. There are only 4 AC input cards in the catalog for the S7 300 systems. They only mention delay, no filtering. I was looking at the only 16 input card they have, 6ES7 321-1FH00-0AA0. The 8 input cards they have have similar stats. The 32 input card has a delay of 15mS instead of 25mS, but that's way more inputs than I need.
  14. S7 300 delays on AC signals

    I have a small machine that stitches books together. Currently this is a fairly simply relay machine but I'm adding a Siemens 312 CPU to count missfeeds independently of the 14 feeders on the machine. There is already a missfeed sensor on each of the feeders that outputs a 120VAC signal. I am also adding a sensor to detect the chain conveyor spacing, 1 pulse for each load pocket. My worry is the speed at which this machine runs. I figure it loads one section of paper every 75mS or so. Each feeders missfeed sensor would be on ~200mS when it's triggers, but I need a repeatable pulse from the conveyor spacing signal which might only be high for 50 to 100mS each cycle. The AC input card have a delay of 25mS, is there potential I could drop a signal that's only high for 50mS? In the past I have almost exclusivly worked with DC machines, so I don't have very much experiance with AC inputs to PLCs. Thanks, Rebecca