Ausman

+ to all of what Joe says. But in my cases I have used what used to be available as this: https://www.altronics.com.au/p/m8587-enforcer-10a-versatile-power-supply-sla-charger/ I haven't needed it for a while, but in hunting it appears to be not available anymore from this supplier. But a whole host of them appear on this US site, some of which appear to be the same thing, so I guess they are still being made. http://www.seco-larm.com/index.php?route=product/search&filter_name=power supply They have been exceptionally reliable in all the instances of use, and they deliver smooth power at the rated volts no matter what they are running from. The one headache I have encountered is that people forget to routinely check the battery is ok. I can go in and find the same battery I put in ages ago, and it has long expired. Even a good SLA on proper float will eventually die. The other quirk to remember if you go for the paralleled method, with so much precision in manufacture these days the odds are that the MTBF on any 2 linked supplies might be identical! Buy two that aren't from the same batch might help this? But if it is that critical I'd definitely have some spares on hand ready! And an inspection process to regularly monitor that each supply is still running ok, unless it can output a signal the plc can recognise. cheers, Aus

This is fascinating. I am absolutely hopeless at remembering names. It is exceptionally embarassing when I only recall it much later after the person's long gone out of view. It's there, but the indexing system has gone astray. But I remember the faces of gazillions of people, remember the instance of that bootlace pin falling off a wire during crimping, remember that intricate bit of that wiring diagram, how that complex bit of machinery goes together etc. All that useless stuff that really is truly irrelevant (and can mostly be found again in a manual) seems to stick, but recalling a name when I see the face again? Uhhhhmmmmm.....I know you fairly well but can't remember the name. I put it down to having to meet so many new faces during my work. My wife astounds me in her name recall abilities, and she often tells me to do word association, but this doesn't work either! Maybe all us geeks have a "name remembering" error in the DNA? cheers, Aus

Kratmel, those things appear to be needing to be a pair, which I don't think is the aim for Flex. My impression is the client wants to scoot around picking up bits of info via a bluetooth connection on the roaming device. cheers, Aus

Very nice, Joe. Am I right in assuming the enclosure is on a moving arm for ease of use? But gees, when are you going to paint those walls?! I guess it was a time issue and it looks like it's a bit late now. 😉 cheers, Aus

FWIW Flex, I once had a special 232 2.4GHz wifi link fail and tried to replace it with 232-bluetooth modules on a different brand of plc. The theory was that I could use the same type of bluetooth sender on a series of identical, hard to access plcs in the business, and would be able to simply hook into each of them using the onboard bluetooth in the laptop by being near them. Perhaps things have improved, and perhaps it was a quirk of the plc brand, but I could never get it to work properly. I spent a lot of time trying. The nearest I got to a reliable link was in using 2 of the units as a matched pair, with one attached to the PC, which sort of defeated the purpose. But it wasn't reliable anyway, it would connect and then drop out and repeat etc. It might have been ok for an occasional data transfer, but I needed to change programs regularly and be able to do precise manual manipulation, and it simply wouldn't get anyway near capable of doing this. So I had to go back to the original method which turned out to be another problem as they didn't make them anymore! I have the modules stashed away somewhere and will try to find time to give them a go on a 130 serial. This might take a week if you can wait that long. The other relevant question is how are they wanting to do this? What will they be reading it with? cheers, Aus

OK Visco, WHAT were you doing in finding that theorem. Bored? Too many cups of coffee? But it's a possible, except for the dates. Maybe it DID all start from controlling a pizza oven! cheers, Aus

Well Saragani, my view is that you guys need to tweak it a bit to explain things better. If I read that screenshot I'd think it was uninstalling completely, too. cheers, Aus

kratmel, I had thought of something like this, but didn't mention it because I was concerned about inherent pickup/dropout delays and inrush loads in using a cap possibly causing issues. It would be good to know through someone trying if it actually works well, and the best tweaked values. From your comparisons it looks like it would. It can't be a coincidence that the response time on the Siemens is 25ms running on 50Hz. cheers, Aus

I agree. But I really hate lack of info on something and having to discover it for oneself, when it can be presented as plain as day in the first place. I once lost months and lots of hair because of inadequate manuals on a host of supposedly fantastic modbus modules that were constantly being updated by their maker. No correct support forthcoming...or it came out 3 months later when it was 5 steps out of date anyway due to another lot of changes. With modbus registers changing all the time such that you had the same mechanicals with fixed firmware using different registers for the same thing. Even in the supplied batch they were all over the place. The maker was no help at all....in fact I helped them a lot (for no gain) in trying to resolve the issues. "It doesn't do that" they would say. "Well, yes it damn well does. Look at this video". "Ohhhh, so it does" etc. Stiff poops for me. In the end had to change them all out to something else due to reliability issues arising later anyway. Which in itself was an issue during initial replacements with the original maker's stuff as the registers had changed again! Even "big" name makers can make crap stuff. I think it is often badge engineering. 🤬 cheers, Aus

What I am alluding to is that to my eye the count is being added to each scan, the addition being reset at 1000ms. So there is something else affecting the count initiation...like an additional element that is making the count increase by 1 each scan when the sensor is closed. cheers, Aus

Further to my ask above, look up SI0, scan time, when online. You will likely find that it will indicate that the 190 can relate to the input being counted every scan. ie scan time might be 5ms, say. On 5ms that's 200 scans/sec, but SI0 rounds things a bit, so you can see my point re 190. cheers, Aus

I did! But Joe, you would not believe the huge price difference in Aus on those things. Greed coupled with hopeless service can be a nasty/frustrating thing to deal with. I often whinge that I can get the same components from a quicker responding, more diligent overseas supplier at way less price than I can get locally, including the high shipping cost from o/s, and they often arrive quicker as well. "Use our online form to do an order" Ring to check on no response a day later. "Ohhh, that doesn't work properly, send me your stuff to my direct email" is what I hear a lot locally. It can take a week just to arrive at a final invoice. All under the guise of "our prices are higher because we have so many overheads". Bollocks. More like "money for nothing", and useless at that. I know I've gone a bit off topic. End of rant. cheers, Aus

If it is counting when the sensor is NOT changing state, which from your description sounds to me like it is doing, there is an error in your ladder work/physical config somewhere. Should only count on each change of state. cheers, Aus

kpetro, have you changed the actual pressure and ensured that the readings over the full range are correct? eg....0 bar = 0 on the plc read etc. @Joe Tauser or @AlexUT I repeat that I don't work with UniStream, but could either/both of you please elaborate on why kpetro's numbers work when the info available in the spec sheet has the data format listed as 16 bit. Based on that info my thinking is that Flex's final answer is correct. But I am confused when there is also reference to 15bits in the resolution. How does one change this output behaviour? Is there more info somewhere else that fully explains all of this ie how you actually know what is coming out of the module? If kpetro is indeed getting correct correlation between actual and read, the card/module must handle things differently to what I would expect. EDIT: I just paid more attention to the 2' compliment and that might account for part of my ask. But it still doesn't explain why the numbers work for 4-20. cheers, Aus

You could hook something to the Vision using Modbus. Plenty of (cheap) modules around that would let you do this. Cheers, Aus

Flex is technically correct re 24AC as digital, but if you are needing to know whether a 24AC switched item is in operation, then you have a variety of options. One of the simplest is if it is already switched by relays, use the second pole set on the relay if it has them, or change the relays to give another pole. You then use the other pole to switch the DC signal. This does have minor drawbacks in that it is only the "called" action being monitored. If you really want to be precise, you should be monitoring the 24AC at the driven endpoint. There are many ways to do this ranging in complexity and cost. If the action is not hugely repetitive/cyclic/quick, then slimline relays/couplers will do the job. The AC turns them on, and they switch the DC signal. cheers, Aus

Visco, I'm sure you could add in some words to the effect of "Beaming it Down, Scotty" during your test compressions, and "Up" for the releasing. cheers, Aus

Cam, I only talk in Vision Land, but I have had similar circumstances. I've never been able to pinpoint it exactly, but it is something to do with the unit being physically accessed at the same time as being remotely accessed. In my case it locks up on whatever screen is in use. Everything the plc is doing still works, but it is simply locked onto the one screen and can only be reset through a power-off. I'd have a look at this sort of sequence and see if it is the culprit. I used to use remote access to manually test things on a site, whilst also at times interacting with the display itself. I don't do that anymore! One or the other. cheers, Aus

Oooops, sorry. Missed that completely. Dumpkerfen! And I DO try to read posts completely. cheers, Aus

You are trying to use 232 when the link is wanting to run on 485. To do this, you have to use pins 1 & 6 on the plc, and set jumpers accordingly. You may have to try swapping the lines if this doesn't work in the first place. As well, it would appear that the drive doesn't have the "normal" modbus comms settings that most of the gear I use does.......8 bits, no parity and 1 stop. You will have to find the best setting amongst all of the RTU options listed in the drive manual on page 4-56, and match these in the PLC's Com Init ladderwork. You should eventually find the one that works the best. For my stuff I always run on 9600, but in theory faster is possible. You again have to see how things go and find the most stable connection type and speed. cheers, Aus

You might want to try what I describe in this post: http://forum.unitronics.com/topic/4342-win-7-and-others-update-quirk-affecting-excel/ I had really weird time behaviour and my cure fixed it. It's a long shot, but maybe it isn't Unitronics related at all. cheers, Aus

Have you tried with no mouse connected and the touchpad and everything associated with it completely disabled? Hmmm...make sure you have a different mouse to put onto a usb in case all that somehow locks you out. Keep in mind that there are certain actions that are not mirrored correctly in RO. One example is access into info mode, it is immediate entry....no delay. Your issues don't sound like these quirks, though. cheers, Aus

HI golzione, I just noticed this for the first time. This possibly may have something to do with the way you are handling the data. To me it looks like you are not clearing your data table each time it needs to restart from Row 1. What happens then is that the old row gets overwritten with the new information. In your case you have the data stored on the 7/7 over-written on the 25/8, and the data looks correct because it is simply a continuing record of your process. I routinely log stuff on a one minute/ 24 hourly basis, and set up my data tables accordingly so that I don't have to clear them. The next lot of 24 hours records over-writes the current rows right up to the last row of the table, and then the row counter is reset to 1 at midnight and things start again. At 11:59:10 PM the data table is copied to the SD so that it is permanently logged under that day's date. The difference here may be that you are writing direct, but the fundamentals of what I am describing may still be occurring. cheers, Aus

Ensure when doing all of this that you check with task manager, each time you try to start the program, that there isn't a stray instance already running. Sometimes during hiccouphs it can remain running in the background and needs an End Process applied. This might account for your beep only. cheers, Aus

Hi Deke, Did you use/vary the "Configure Proxy Settings" at the bottom of the rego window? Used the "Test Proxy Settings" button? Tried it as No proxy? cheers, Aus