ratcliffe_ic

The dll files did not work on the XP machine, just to complete the thread

I have 3 systems to back up the programs on. I have a windows xp sp 3 laptop with real serial port and I'm running LM90 not sure of the version but sure its 9. something. I've connected to all 3 machines and attempted to LOAD FROM PLC TO PROGRAMMER, all 3 come back with the following after 30 seconds or so: (S43) Communicaton failed or I've seen: Error during load; program folder incomplete. Must reload or restore logic I'm not sure if the programs are security protected to prevent an upload or some other issue if someone could shed some light on this? The next question is that each system has 3 PLC's. Do they all need connecting to and an upload done for each? Final question is there is a coprocessor in the main plc rack, does it's program get uploaded with the main plc (when I can get that to work!) or does it need a separate upload? Thanks in advance

I have applied the patch but not tried it, the windows 95 machine worked fine with v9.02 so the immediate panic is over for now as I have the programs backed up. I'll try the xp machine tomorrow as the windows 95 machine will probably pack in next! I'll feedback if it works or not. I'll be checking out costs for the latest software as well.

Thanks for the reply, it seems my problem is related to this previous post: http://forums.mrplc.com/index.php?showtopic=6827 I am using V9.02 though so not sure if these will dll files will help my situation. I am going to try an old win95 laptop running v9.02 and see what happens.

I'm currently doing a project with 1732 armorblock and struggling with the power connectors, it looks like I will need to buy T taps and 2m cables which will all need coiling up neatly. I should have selected the units with a power in and power out port but I'm stuck with the single port now unfortunately. Has anyone made up their own cables for this, and found the 4 pin mini connectors online? Some of my connections will be quite short so I don't want to have loops of cable everywhere.

report attached REPORT.txt

Check your screen update rate, right click the display and look at it's properties, the standard setting is quite slow, set it to 0.1s and see how it performs.

You need to set up the 232-asc to use a delimiter if possible as a signal that all the barcode is in, usually carriage return or line feed can be used, you may have to change your barcode reader to append this to the end of the code it reads. That way i think it will cope with the varying lengths of codes you will be reading. What you are experiencing at the moment is you have to keep scanning the code until you get 45 characters in before it sends the code to the clx. When you set it for a delimiter it looks for that then transfers the code. I found the 232-asc to be a bit limited when using it to read codes of a varying length from a drive, where I couldn't add a delimiter and ended up having to replace it with something else. I think you will be ok here though, check out the manual for info on setting it up with a delimiter.

I did an ABB plc job about 2 years ago, they've got all the bells and whistles available to program anything but I would NEVER fit one by choice. I normally would use A-B or Mitsubishi and it was a very different programming environment, tech support was not great, it was like going back in time with a PLC. If you have A-B and Mitsubishi already there's a lot to be said for sticking with the same equipment.

I have a project and was hoping to use the above module, I need to send some strings to a Control Techniques Unidrive, now these are in the following format: Drive Read, drive node 11, parameter 13.07 EOT11111307ENQ and I will get the reply STX1111+0.489ETXBCC So I will not get a delimiter at the end, just the BCC value Drive Write, drive node 11, parameter 13.07 EOT1111STX1307+0.490ETXBCC and I will get the reply ACK for a valid message or NAK for an invalid message Therefore I,m dealing with different length replies, no delimiter. Has any one been successful in dealing with strings of different length, I believe you can't change the config in the plc code (for the received length/new delimiter) as you need to reboot the module to do this. Any ideas anyone?

I have plenty of time to do a reboot so I think it could work for me, how did you locate the information to do a reboot??

Thanks for the reply. Is there a way to reboot the module from within the PLC code? I take your point about wasted time.

The ACK and NAK are single byte codes, Ctl F and Ctl U There is no PING facility The most important thing here is that I can write to the inverter, so I will have to use the ACK as my delimiter. However I wanted to read some values off it as well, so, what if I was to read a value then write a value (to a parameter of no significance) so I got my ACk, the data after the ACK would then be my read data. Bit messy I know, but I've ordered these things last week and could be stuck with them.

Disconnect the battery from PLC and then leave it for a while ( have a cup of tea) then try and download your program, some capacitance in the processor retains some parts of the program even though it appears to have no program in it. This then means your download won't work properly. I had this recently and had to call Siemens tech support about this.

They are available from Schneider, the part number is TSXBAT4903

The transfer to the PLC is handled by writing a script, look in the help files for the Proface terminal.

One possible way if you are talking Panelview + is to : Create your generic application as Station 1, then export the tags and do a search and replace in excel and re-import them into new copies of your generic application named as Station 2 and 3 Then when you do mods you always modify your generic application and do the same procedure for distribution to your other plant HMI's

Hi I have a 90-30 PLC which has now faulted twice with the following fault: RACK SIZE MISMATCH, both times have been since isolating the machine. The fault location says 2.0 The machine is over 10 years old and nothing has been modified in that time. Could anyone point me in the right direction on this one, my next step would be to start swapping parts machine to machine (got a few of these) Thank in advance

I've reinstalled an older version of versapro on my machine today, then been online to download the plc program and HW configuration.........then bottled it! I've got servo cards etc and an uneasy feeling came over me, about ending up with a non-running machine. I've got a back-up of the original program before I opened it in v2.04, so I'm OK there but I'm not sure if the HW config was uploaded when it was saved. What I did today is upload the running program and HW config as a new file, my question is, when I get the HW config fault again (which I will inevitably) could I download what I saved today and that will resolve this issue or must I download the original backup. I'm thinking that the HW config I saved today is the current state of the machine so it should resolve the problem, would this be a correct assumption?

Thanks for the info, I suppose I could go back to my previous version of Versapro (wish I hadn't upgraded now). Would you know if you can have two versions on the same PC or am I looking at setting up a virtual machine?

I went to do a download this morning to rectify this problem but backed out of it when my software said the firmware is not ok with my version of software. I have versapro v2.04 and the machine firmware is 5.02 and versapro says I need at least 8.21. Can you tell me the procedure to correct this and point out any risks to doing this. Thanks

Making sense now, I did do a download a month or so back when there was a problem following a weekend isolation, I put it down to PLC battery (didn't check the fault that time, just installed a new battery!) I didn't download the hardware configuration just the program, I'll get that downloaded and see what happens. It could be this is the 1st isolation since my download. Thanks

I am about to fit a TP177B to a S7-300 CPU313 and want to be able to connect to both the CPU and HMI at the same time, is this possible with this combination. I want to avoid having to unplug the HMI to program the PLC. If it's possible can you let me know what cables I would need. Thanks in advance

Yes, outputs from one system wired to inputs on the other and vice versa, because we were on PLC5 we mounted some flex i/o on RIO in the gem panel which made it pretty easy to do.

I'd say they won't be able to talk to each other, there's plenty of examples of people on this site wanting to message over ethernet from PLC manufacturer X to PLC manufacturer Y and unless they are using the same protocol like MODBUS TCP then it's just not possible. If you speak to the people at Converteam (what was GEC at Kidsgrove) they may be able to give you some advice, there may be a MODBUS card available for the GEM 80 in which case you could fit a PROSOFT modbus card to your SLC. The last time I needed to send info back and forward from a GEM 80 to a PLC5, I used digital signals.