MrAutomation

I've heard of it, but I use Drive Executive, so I've never tried it. Is there any reason to change programs?

"I Break Things" is what I do. MrAutomation is my user name. I work for a company that owns several mills in the forest industry, performing project based work at several locations. Before that I worked as a consultant in the oil & gas industry. And even before that I was an electrician. So now you know. I have one last comment to make. If you host a site for someone else (ie. Veterans), that's great, and you certainly shouldn't put your company name on it. If you design an extra website of your own, and it directly has to deal with the product you are trying to sell, then full disclosure is necessary. That's two entirely different things.

Sounds like you've got the solution then. Go for it! Best of luck!

I don't know if that will work. If you want your OTL bits to remain on after a power cycle, I don't think you're allowed to have an OTE assigned to it. I'm pretty sure that will nullify any "latching" properties over a power cycle. Here's a really good thread about the subject. I linked directly to a post made by Ron Beaufort, it covers the topic thoroughly. If you have a bit that needs to remain true over a power cycle, you'll probably have to modify the logic to use OTL and OTU instructions exclusively. Edit: Reading Ron's post a little more, you can use this trick to force an OTE to be retentive (read the rung comments for explanation, or read the full info in his post):

Oh I understand. It takes a sample of the current position, and later it takes a sample of the position again. If the error is too great in either direction, flag an alarm. What's not working with it? It actually seems like it should work, now that I understand what it is. The one question I have is the "%s6" tag. I don't know if that would work. What PLC is this? Try replacing that with a real timer. Edit: Also, change the scan order of your blocks. Right now it's all out of order, and that could be causing the problem. The numbers at the top left of each block should go from 1 to 6, reading left to right, then down to the next row, like a book. This way the blocks will be executed in the order that makes logical sense according to the program. Sometimes the scan order doesn't really make a difference, but sometimes it makes a big difference.

Is the panelview connected directly to the drive, or is it connected to a PLC, which is connected to the drive (which is what I would expect). Open the application and see what the tag is and where it points to. That's the first step. I would suspect it's probably just pointed to the wrong tag, or it's a PLC error.

Just my personal opinion, but I really dislike programming on anything that uses RSLogix 5/500. There's a lot of powerful tools you have in the 5000 platforms. Task scheduling, Add on Instructions, User Data Types and Aliases are just a few. I love being able to create very structured and organized programs in a way that just isn't possible in the older platforms. That being said, I know a lot of more, ahem, "traditional" people at the facilities where I work who just love PLC 5 (we have a mix of old PLC 5 stuff and newer CLX stuff). Personally, I think that's madness. Like ASForrest said, it's like comparing apples to oranges.

You should put this in the allen bradley forum. It looks like RSLogix 5000. I don't really understand your logic, it doesn't make sense to me (it just seems to go in circles and not really accomplish anything). Can you answer a few questions? What is the typical reading of the sensor? What is the reading of the sensor when it's interrupted? What do you want to do under normal operations? What do you want to do when it's interrupted? Answer these 4 questions and it will be much easier to help.

Use a gateway device to establish communications between the devices. There's many brands available, but here's a couple suggestions: http://www.anybus.com/ http://www.prosoft-technology.com/

Hi Everything you say is totally valid, except there is the issue of full disclosure on your site. It appears to be made by some independent third party. When you linked to it, you never mentioned anything about it being made by BIN95. I totally beleived is was made by a third party until I took a closer look. To get the respect of your clients, full disclosure is necessary. On top of that, it the law. I'm no lawyer, so I'm not going to say whether this is breaking any full disclosure laws or not, but I'd say you'd probably be best to have a nice big BIN95 logo at the top and say "This site is provided by BIN95 to provide best practices... etc". Then it would seem a lot more legitimate.

I have fallen in love with these phoenix contact RJ45 connectors. They are designed for industrial use and reliability, with a built in strain relief. You can even open them up to double check terminations and fix mistakes! - Video Removed - Here's a link to a better product overview instead

Here's a link to some european website that has it. The Pheonix Contact website is awful, unfortunately. It's got a video and pictures. You'll notice on the video that there is a clip to connect to the braided shield of your CAT6 cable. You don't need to use shielded cable. I use these even on cables without shields (and some with) and would recommend them no matter what type cable you use.

Haha, this website is a scam, as far as I'm concerned. BIN95 creates a website with a nice ORG domain name, designs a fancy seal (not that it's really all that fancy), and outlines the "correct" method to train individuals on PLC programming. It looks as though it was put together by some independent group of individuals trying to establish a proper standard. Except it's not. It's put together by BIN95 (see the small print at the bottom), so that they can hold it up and say "See? Look? You need to pay us because we follow this international standard! Look! It even has a seal!" Lies. If it's all the same to you, I'll stick to following standards established by the IEC or IEEE and other established groups. Certainly not the PLO (PLC Training Organization... Do you even have legal rights to that name?) Cheers

A temposonic isn't a traditional rotary encoder as someone reading this might think. It's a magnetostrictive linear position sensor, meant to be installed inside a hydraulic cylinder. I've never heard of one of these using a quadrature output, which probably says something about the age of your device. Temposonic is a great name, we use them all over our facilities. Don't get anything else. You should probably upgrade to an SSI input. They also make an Ethernet capable model which supports Ethernet/IP (Rockwell), EtherCAT and Ethernet Powerlink. Contact your rep and get a replacement Tempo. That's my suggestion.

I don't know what you're looking for when you say "explosion proof operator console", but it sounds expensive. Aren't you just looking for a single E-Stop button? You can just get a regular explosion proof box with an E-Stop button (like this). Then make sure you either have a conduit seal or a sealed Tek connector (STX) if you are using Tek Cable. I'm not saying it's better or worse, but then you don't have to create a physically isolated part of your cabinet for intrinsically safe installations, and a dedicated intrinsically safe conduit/cable tray, and all that stuff that comes along with intrinsically safe installations.

Sorry, I haven't been checking here much recently. I don't know if you've done this or not by now, but here's my two bits. This is pretty straight forward. When the first high level switch trips, latch in a bit that is used to turn on the lead motor (using a simple seal-in latch rung. I'm assuming you know what a motor starter/seal in circuit looks like). Use the low level switch to drop out the latch. When the second level switch trips, latch in a bit that is used to turn on the lag motor (same as above). Use the low level switch to drop out the latch. Every time the low level switch trips, toggle a bit that determines which pump is lead or lag. That's about it. If you need help, put up what you've got started. Best of luck!

I don't think it should matter. When you look at the properties of a button that navigates to a different screen, what does it say? As long as it says the correct screen name in the button properties, it should work fine. As with any conversion (or, for that matter, any project at all), everything needs to be thoroughly tested in a non production environment before you roll it out, so you should catch any errors at that point.

Create an array, then use find/replace to modify your program. It's going to be worth it. (In fact, I bet you could have been able to make the switch in the same amount of time it took to research this problem )

How do you plan to alternate the pumps? With a timer? Using a button? Do these pumps have any sort of aux (running) feedback? Any extra details?

Use Wireshark on one of the computers. Don't leave wireshark running non stop or you'll run out of memory. Then use dumpcap to store the logs to file (instructions here - scroll down to the Solution, there's a link to a UI tool at the very bottom) You can then use Wireshark to analyse the file captures you've made. When you have a problem, go back to that point in time on your log files and see if there was a network storm or something on your network, and what IP address it came from. This should help you determine the source of the problem, if not the cause.

I'm actually doing a similar application, and I'm familiar with the RMC. Currently, for us, it's a toss up between RMC150, 1756-M02AS (Control Logix), or a new device called the Bosch IAC (Integrated Axis Controller) valve. It has all the motion control functionality built right in to the servo valve, and I just communicate using Ethernet/IP. I think it's a pretty interesting device. Has anyone used it before?

Yes absolutely, use the motor feedback position, not the command position. Also, your compare instruction might need to be in a scheduled task with very short period (< 5mS possibly?), depending on how fast your motor turns. Otherwise the motor position could just jump past your setpoints between scans and the compare instruction won't be triggered. Ideally, you could use a limit instruction, so that whenever the motor is within a specific "zone" the output turns on, instead of at specific "points" as per your diagram. This would help prevent missed scans. Also make sure that the actual physical output tag (or alias) is in the same high speed task. If the output goes to a mapping tag, and then gets mapped to the actual output in a seperate routine (common practice), this could also cause timing problems for high speed applications.

A third option, if neither is acceptable, is to give access to a client using RDP or VNC, but create a "view only" user in your application, or give them access only to some custom pages that only have the info they need. Are you using FTView SE?

Actually, if you re-read Dippy's post, you'll see he gave you schematics for the simplest application possible. All it takes is a simple timing relay (T1), a simple contacter (C1) to start the fan, and your input device (limit switch or photoeye) (S1). With these three parts wired as per the schematic it'll do exactly what you need, and you can probably implement it for $100-$200. How's that for cost effective?

Going off topic a bit here, but if you're looking at using Wonderware for data gathering/MES, you should really take a serious look at Ignition by Inductive Automation instead. They've got an awesome licensing model and one of the most innovative products available.