AB to OMRON

[snowmaxx 0]

I am not totally sure what section I should put this in. The existing PLC is an AB and has 32 point cards. We are putting in an OMRON PLC with 96 point cards. Is there anyone who manufacutures cables that will use the existing wiring from the AB PLC and connect to the OMRON cards?

[TimWilborne 108]

Do they have some type of wiring interface on them or is it wired directly to the PLC? If it is wired directly to the PLC then no If it is wired through some type of interface it is possible. Needs some details of the wiring interface to give an answer

[snowmaxx 0]

Well I can only answer that to a limited exstent. I only have the pictures that someone else took. I can see that there are ribbon cables running to the cards on the AB, but in the pictures the covers are closed. I wish I had more information. Problem is that the PLC is 4 hrs worth of driving away. Any thoughts even with the lack of information? I was hoping that with the ribbon cable, that there would be a nice way to convert things.

[TimWilborne 108]

Can you post the pictures? If your not comfortable posting them you can PM them too me if you would like for me to take a look. The ribbon cable sounds promising

[snowmaxx 0]

OK the pic is attached. If you have trouble opening, tell me which format you would like it in, and I can save it as something else.

[TimWilborne 108]

No doubt, those are ribbon cables. If you can get the picture of the the other end then I can verify but I'm guessing that they are AB 1492 wiring arms. I have two thoughts 1. Buy ribbon cables long enough to get to where they go and wire them to your modules before hand. That way all you would have to do when you get there is swap the PLCs and plug your new ribbon cables in. You can reverse engineer the wiring diagram with the wiring arms part number 2. What is the purpose of changing to the Omron? If you just want the Omron controller and are fine with the I/O then you could put a Devicenet scanner in place of the SLC processor and use the existing I/O with the new Omron processor. Is could be a less expensive alternative if the existing I/O is acceptable

[snowmaxx 0]

I was kinda thinking about making ribbon cables that I could plug into the cable that I unpluged from the AB cards. Something like 6 inches long, and it would plug into the OMRON cards. The whole reason for switching to OMRON was that we needed redundancy, and it was easier to accomplish that with OMRONs CS1W rather than deal with the networking that you have to do to make AB redudant. Then we are expanding thier PLC and needed to conserve space so we went with the 96 pt cards.

[TimWilborne 108]

Ok well that throws out option 2. It is going to be hard to make a 6" adapter to go from the AB wiring arm to an Omron because the size of the connector going to the module is just about the size of the module door and it is about 3/4" deep. Think you will have to replace the entire cable if you want the job to look neat and not have a maintenance worker wanting to bit you head off when he goes to troubleshoot it. Still would need a part number off of the interface on the other end to figure out your wiring. Are you just looking for processor redundancy?

[snowmaxx 0]

Unfortunately we weren't the ones who really wanted the redundancy. It was speced to us, and the guy who wrote the spec is not very flexible when it comes to listening to our logic. I mean really how often do you have one fail? There are two PLCs going to be running with the redundant CLK comm, redundant PSs everwhere and redundant CUPs at both ends. And to top it off there is redundant comm with the DSX. There is redundant everything. I do think that you are right in that doing a complete swap of the ribbon cables is the cleanest. On the other hand I think that their system will be down for less time if we do the addapters. I will see if they are willing to replace all the ribbon cables.

[OIDMBTRTECH 0]

Have you considered using the omron cable from the PLC then jumpering from the cable end to the ribbon cable at the terminals? you will be crowded at the plc to say the least, but usually by terminal strips there is a tad bit more elbow room.

[snowmaxx 0]

I think we are going to make some short addapter cables. Now I need to find some free air connectors that are the same as the connectors in the AB 1746-OB32.