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RiLo73

PL7-3 Ethway in Virtual Machine

13 posts in this topic

Hey there,

I have a very special question for all experts in the old TSX-PLCs. We got about 20-30 TSX87 (and some 107) running in a big Ethway-Network.

Our Maintenance-Service is using an old PC with OS2 and PL7-3 for troubleshooting and programming the PLCs.

Is there any way to run a OS2-Virtual Machine on a Win10-Host PC and get the Ethway-Protocol routed inside the Virtual Machine?

We managed to get OS2 and PL7-3 running inside the VM, but we fail to get the Ethway-Connection inside of it. We use some PCI Ethway-Cards. I don't know the exact name of the card in the moment, but if it is necessary for an answer i will find it out.

 

Greetings from Germany

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Consider using Linux as your bare-metal host.  Virt-manager with QEMU-KVM and LibVirt allow you to delegate PCI devices to the guest OS.  I expect that would work.

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Problem with a card is using most VM software it belongs to the host PC, not the VM.  See if your VM software allows you to transfer ownership of it like a USB device can.  Then the VM should recognize it and be able to install drivers.

You need to get those things retired, they have been obsolete and out of production since the early 90s...

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13 hours ago, pturmel said:

Consider using Linux as your bare-metal host.  Virt-manager with QEMU-KVM and LibVirt allow you to delegate PCI devices to the guest OS.  I expect that would work.

@pturmel Would this work with a parallel port card? I have some old software that uses a sentinal hardware dongle that won't run anything more modern than WinXP. It's getting more and more difficult to find hardware that still has drivers for WinXP  

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4 hours ago, chelton said:

Would this work with a parallel port card?

Maybe.  But not with the PCI passthrough features.  QEMU-KVM can emulate serial and parallel ports at the hardware level, but I don't know if it includes the EPP/ECP functionality that a dongle would need.  It definitely works with serial ports--I've passed FTDI-based USB serial devices into DOS VMs emulating a "real" COM1 to work with very old DOS software.  I had to use some manual overrides in the VM definition that the Virt-Manager GUI didn't understand (via the XML tab).

Sounds like an experiment is in order.

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Thank you all very much for the answers. I think now we have a real chance to get it running.

 

@Crossbow i know that the PLCs are very old, but we have tons of spare parts for them and the machines are in a good condition. At the moment we see no point of changing them to new ones. Maybe you know the saying: "Never change a running system" ;-)

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5 hours ago, RiLo73 said:

"Never change a running system"

I usually quote this tacked on: "..., but have a plan."

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On 18/01/2022 at 0:15 AM, pturmel said:

Sounds like an experiment is in order.

Indeed. I will add it to my list. Thanks Phil.

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I prefer 'when you buy a control system, have an upgrade plan' over 'well its still running'.  I told all of my customers that when I installed a PLC, they need to make a plan to upgrade it at around 10 years.  Once a system is obsolete, it becomes harder to support.  As you are seeing here.  To me "Never change a running system" is utter nonsense.

 

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Hey there,

now i got a virtual machine (VirtualBox) with OS/2 & XTEL6.1 SP1 up and running. The local connection to the PLC is working via TSXPC01 and a TSX TE01-box. If i put an Ethway ETH107 in the local PLC, i can reach all other PLCs in our Ethway-Network.

Within my research i found some hint on the french Schneider-Website and in a french forum for PLC&Automation. There is a programming device called Kalhix Generation, that really has an Ethway-Connection to the old TSX-PLCs. They use Win10 as host, virtual machine with OS/2 and then some kind of magic to establish the connection.

Unfortunately the german Schneider support won't give me answers how they do it and they won't sell it in Germany. I personally they got some new drivers or a special kind of network card.

 

Can anybody tell me something about the Kalhix device? Is someone working with it already?

Sorry for the bad english.

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Morning,


I saw your posts on the french automation forum. Kalhix is just a laptop (probably Panasonic thougbook) with their software for plcs.


I never use it cause it's way too expensive for what it is (about 9000 euros for premium version) and there's nothing you can't do with a basic laptop.


Ethway communication could be interesting to connect plcs remotely but honestly you can troubleshoot your installations without it.


I have installed hundred of 7 serie plcs in the past and I rarely (to not say never) used Ethway communication.


Today I use a virtual machine on a Dell laptop with serial port to use the westermo converter and it's largely sufficent.

JC

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Hello acpi,

can you describe your way in detail? Which converter-model do you use and how do i set it up properly?

Is it also a communication with something "Ethernet-like" or do you use the local driver in XTEL?

Thanks

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I simply use an old Dell laptop with a serial port and a virtual machine with XTEL SP1.

I connect the plcs in local either with a RS232/RS485 converter for TSX 17 or FT21CBCL030 cable wich is a RS232/Current loop converter for TSX27, 57, 67, 87 or 107.

You can use as well a Westermo MA-21 converter wich is exactely the same thing than the original Telemecanique TSX TE01.

Today we don't work a lot with those plcs. Most of the time it's just to get the program to convert it on a newer plc or to restore a program after a loss caused by battery failure so there's really no need to use distant connection as Ethway.

The fact is Ethway came at the very end of life of those plcs and in addtion the Ethway modules were very expensive, so it was very rarely used. So you wo'nt find a lot of informations about it even by old automation guys like me ;-)

JC

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