Nightfly

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Posts posted by Nightfly

  1. Posted

    VNC is useless if you are trying to show a single screen continuously.  This is all really basic stuff, are you new to this (this is not a criticism as we all started somewhere)? If you can connect via Ethernet then simply get another HMI to show the data you need. Frankly it doesn’t need to be a GOT, there are cheaper options out there – especially if IP rating is not an issue (the only reason to us a GOT in my opinion).

  2. Posted

    Quote

    I thought use another GOT like a dumb device just looking at that one particular screen. But I dont think one would be able to get the GOT to share its stuff down the IP.

     

    Well normally you would just configure another port on the PLC and simply connect the new HMI to that. Is there a problem doing this?

    We have often shared a port for overview screens without problems.  Usually this has been on Fx PLC’s specifically on the old E-NET module where ports are limited. Yes it can slow the HMI’s down if you have them both polling rapidly. However, if you change the overview screen to only update every few seconds then normally it’s not a problem. On one site we have an overview screen polling 14 different PLC’s using this method (because all the other ports on the 14 machines are being used by OPC or direct PLC to PLC communication).

    Only works on certain protocols though.

     

    What PLC are you using?

     

  4. Posted · Edited by Nightfly

     

    Quote

    I still have the problem that, when the user attempts to connect to a PLC that is tuned off, the program simply freezes... 

    You could always ping the PLC first to see if it is online?

    When you say it freezes what do you mean? Are you creating the Mx instance on the GUI thread - if so that’s probably why it is freezing. Stick it in a separate thread and it can hang all day if it wants and it won’t affect the GUI.

    If you are just wanting the PLC and Robot to talk to each other have you considered using a protocol converter?  We have used the Beijer Box 2 range quite a lot for such things (the base model we get for just over £200) and it includes drivers for around 80 different protocols. There are other similar devices (Red Lion for example) but we prefer these because you can add your own C# code to it (to cache data etc).

     

     

     

     

  5. Posted · Edited by Nightfly

    Perhaps it has improved over the years but we gave up on MX Component about 10 years ago for similar reasons (think this was on version 3).  We found that it just wasn’t reliable when communications fell over – usually because the guys on the shop floor had turned the machine off/on. If I remember correctly we ended up having the PLC send a watchdog value that incremented once a second. We had the PLC Mx communication on one thread, and another monitoring thread checking for the watchdog value to change over time. If the watchdog value didn’t change then the monitoring thread killed the Mx thread and started a new one up. Not ideal by any means but it sort of worked ok.

    We moved on to using kepserverex OPC and later to getting the data via the HMI (as it saves the cost of an OPC Sever and can also cache the data for when the PC is down).

  7. Posted · Edited by Nightfly

    I think you are confusing Mitsubishi PLC programming with .Net or Java etc.  There are no instances of objects created or destroyed (no reference types so nothing to garbage collect). When you use VAR_INPUT_OUTPUT  its not referencing the variable but copying its value, then using it, then copying the result back to the original variable.  

    As other have said the timer needs to be scanned all the time – no different than ladder. It's the same in other PLC's as well. For example below is a timer in Allen Bradley ST. If you commented out (or deleted) the timer on line 2 the timer would stop working.

     

    1.       DelayPumpStart.PRE := 5000;

    2.       TONR(DelayPumpStart);

    3.       DelayPumpStart.TimerEnable := ValveOpen_Verified_V45LEX;

  8. Posted

    Why do you want to use 0-10V? The A800 should accept 4-20mA as a signal input (you would need to change the parameters as well as the voltage/current switch then apply the 4-20mA on terminals 4&5).

     

    If you really want to use 0-10V you could (as I mentioned in an earlier reply) use the 0-10V output of the first inverter as the reference speed for the second inverter using terminals AM & 5.

    Regards

     

    1 person likes this

  9. Posted

    I am assuming you want to give the same speed reference signal to both inverters. If that is the case, then yes, it is possible. Just set the Inverters up to use 4-20mA as the speed input and wire the 4-20mA in series with both inverters. You can often achieve the same result by feeding the 4-20mA output of one inverter into the 4-20mA input of the other (you can also ratio the speeds this way).

     

     

    Regards

     

    1 person likes this

  10. Posted

    Mitsubishi E1000 HMI's to Beijer Exter project converter (and visa versa)

    View File

    Program to convert Mitsubishi / Beijer E1000 projects to Beijer Exter projects (and back again if required).

    This can actually be done by modifying the main project text file and then re-naming it but as the company I work for has nearly a thousand E1000 series on site I thought I would write a small app to do it.

    This is not a demo - just didn't know where else to put it!

     

     

  12. Posted

     

    from http://www.chipkin.com/hubs-vs-switches-using-wireshark-to-sniff-network-packets/

    A switch will never forward 'other' traffic (traffic that is not directed to your ethernet mac address + broadcast) to your port unless you tell it to do so. So, if you did not configure a mirror port on the switch, you will only see this kind of traffic.

    • your own traffic
    • traffic to multicast and/or broadcast addresses

    Please read the following Wiki article: http://wiki.wireshark.org/CaptureSetup/Ethernet

     

    Basically you need an old hub not a switch (or a programmed managed switch) - personally I bought an old Netgear DS104 hub to use with wireshark which works great.

  13. Posted

    Quote

    If you must stick with the FX depending on the complexity of the program I would do a bit exchange in the ACPU program from for let's say X**8 - X**F and change them to all M bits with similar addressing to what it will end up as in the FX. For example if the current X bit is X00F and you will land it to X20 on the FX I would replace X00F with M2020 (or anything that ends in a 20). Then after copying and pasting it to the new FX program you can do a batch replace (M2020 --->X20)

    Personally I would do this but leave all inputs as flags within the program and then simply at the beginning of the program map the physical inputs to the ones declared as flags. I'ts then easier to simulate inputs for testing etc. Same if you need to change your IO around. The program becomes independent of it's physical I/O.

     

  14. Posted

    I personally find structured text is much easier (and clearer) to use when dealing with arrays/indexes

    With “Dollies” declared as a zero based array of 1000 int’s starting at ZR60000  [0..999]

    and “CarrierID” declared as an Int

    and D990 has a value 888

     

    When “CarrierID” has a value of 0 then the statement...

    Dollies[CarrierID] := D990

    would put the value of 888 into ZR60000

     

    When “CarrierID” has a value of 123 then the statement...

    Dollies[CarrierID] := D990

    would put the value of 888 into ZR60123

     

    When “CarrierID” has a value of  990 then the statement...

    Dollies[CarrierID] := D990

    would put the value of 888 into ZR60990

  19. Posted · Edited by Nightfly

    Screen_Shot_01_02_17_at_05_14_PM.pngimage upload

    A bit basic - but could you not just put a shortcut to each machine on the desktop. We have done this before on the E1000 series (using Tightvnc). The user just clicks on the icon for the machine he wants to control (or just view - setup dependant).

  20. Posted

     

    You should be able to do this using using the HMI. I have not used the T7F-2 but if it is iX just follow the setup in the pdf below.

    https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0ahUKEwjI-ICxwYDRAhWJJSwKHboJA3QQFggkMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.accs.cz%2FFiles%2FFA%2FBEIJER%2FDownload%2FStart-up%2520document%2C%2520Configuring%2520data%2520exchange%2520in%2520iX%2520Developer%2520(KI00323).pdf&usg=AFQjCNE47XUkEOr44Yua9zqDUiFasWwN7g&bvm=bv.142059868,d.bGg&cad=rja

     

     

     

     

  21. Posted

     

     

    Didn’t think you could use an FX3U-ENET-P502 module with FX3GE PLC because the PLC has already got onboard Ethernet. Just like you can’t put two ENET modules on the same PLC (well this is what Mitsubishi told us when we asked a few years ago).

    I would be interested if anybody knows different.

     

  23. Posted

    The port number does not matter if you use the settings as shown for the PLC. To get Simultan you need to enter 255,255,255,255 for the transition target IP address (it basically means that any unused UDP port number can be used).

    I have just created a basics PLC and HMI project (the PLC is in IEC) on our test rigs that works with the above settings. You can download them from...

    https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ksd4p3m3uno1i6f/AACJeYfrpWeLOkIggvQYJkXxa?dl=0

     

    Also check the Operational settings are set to “always wait for Open (Communication Possible at STOP time)

    Regards

  25. Posted

     

    You talk about WinCPU and PPC - but are you really talking about the C Controller module? 

    If you are talking about bespoke software written on an industrial PC then it is impossible to help you without seeing the source code (are they using custom subroutines to talk directly to the PLC or using OPC etc).  If you are actually referring to the C Controller module then there are examples from Mitsubishi on the web.

    http://dl.mitsubishielectric.com/dl/fa/document/catalog/sol/ccpu/l08211eng/l08211enga.pdf

     

    Either way if you are not familiar with C or C++ then you are in for a steep learning curve.