Citect & Omron

[valerio81 0]

Hi. i'm using citect v6.0 and i have a problem. i'm tring to connect with Citect to my Omron CJ1M PLC through serial port but it doesen't work. i'm using OMRON protocol but i don't know if it's correct. Maybe i have to Use OMFINS or FINS protocol?? what's the settings to do? in my computer i have installed FINS 3.2 (it works good with ethernet ETN21). thank you. Valerio

[valerio81 0]

i've found the solution... the file citect.ini i was using doesent work. replacing it with the original (from the insallation) all works good.. it happens also with ethernet a month ago... maybe a bug??? i don't know but now everything goes right.. bye

[PdL 71]

Remember, during runtime Citect uses the Citect.ini located in the c:\Windows folder, but each project in the Citect folder has it's own Citect.ini, depending on the different Citect settings. When restoring a project, make user the Windows account has enough privilige to copy files to the Windows folder. And make sure you have run the computer setup selecting the project you want the PC to run. This copies the correct settings to the Citect.ini. Read more about it in the Citect knowledge base, downloadable from the Citect site. It has many usefull tips and information about these sort of "problems".

[valerio81 0]

thank you.. i have another question.. now i'm using OMRON protocol in "I/O devices" but i cant read HR and WR memories can i use FINS or FINS3 protocol with serial port??? i have only a PLC connected to PC through serial and i havent a ETN card... maybe it's impossible... some idea??? thank you.. Valerio

[PdL 71]

I don't have Citect in front of me right now but I think you're right about the HR / WR area. But I'll check tomorrow to be sure or maybe Bob comes along he knows this for sure. The FINS drivers do support HR and WR You can run Citect and Omron serial with 2 drivers; either directly Host Link (the Omron driver) or through FINS which requires the Fins Gateway running too. If you register on the Citect site, log in and go to Downloads > Driverweb you can search for manufacturer Omron and you get a list of all available drivers and the comms methods. I downloaded the latest Omron driver, it's v.2.01.06.001, released 21 oct 2005. See attachment. omronV20106001.zip

[BobB 58]

If you are using serial I hope you do not expect any speed from the connection. It will be painfully slow. I would suggest you use the FINS Gateway which is available from Citect free of charge. If at a later date you wish to go to Ethernet or someting, the migration will be easier. I would suggest you make any data you wish to extract into Citect contigious. If you are pulling bits from different areas of the PLC, communications will be painful. There is a header on each read request but if you can move everything into one block in the PLC, there will only be one header and read times will be much quicker. I would suggest you move all digital bits you wish to read into the CIO area and all words into contigious data memories. The PLC will process this much quicker than many reads from different areas on a serial link.

[PdL 71]

I don't use the serial driver either but according to this article the OMRON driver does support HR. Q3067.pdf

[BobB 58]

Yes but I would still map all HR, LR, W etc to contigious I/O in the CIO area to improve the read times dramatically. I originally used serial to 9 PLCs on a job with 3500 tags in Citect. There was no FINS Gateway available in Citect at the time. I made all the words and bits contigious. There was a 16 channel serial board with a processor on the board for each channel. There was a separate host link on each PLC. The Citect read time was about once every 12 seconds. Absolutely painful. For networking and programming I used Sysmac Link (before Controller Link). When the FINS Gateway driver became available and was stable, I converted the system to this method. All of a sudden Citect was reporting up to 15,000 digital reads per second. It is a power station and frequency is now trended every 100 milliseconds as well as something like 1000 tags every second. The performance is awesome. Serial ---- PASS!!!!!!! Never again.

[valerio81 0]

so thank you. i had found a solution and it works very good.. in my plant i have 150 TAG and i read HR as word and with cicode ( BITAND ) I use it in bit mode... I use FINS Gateway and i've seen the difference setting different speeds in PLC port. using baud rate @ 9600 it's slow using baud rate @ 115200 i don't know if it's correct but it goes very well.. and FINS GAteway is simple to set!!! thank you again. Valerio P.S. With OMRON protocol you cant read HR or WR. You can read with OMFINS but i think it's a ethernet protocol

[BobB 58]

Yes. FINS Gateway covers all.