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tmoulder

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Posts posted by tmoulder

  1. Has anyone had any success using a Chromebook to program Unitronics hardware?  I know, I know, no native support, but I am curious if anybody found a good work-around, and if so, how did you pull it off?

     

    Thanks!

     

    Tim Moulder

  2. 14 hours ago, Ausman said:

    Is the PLC itself totally within  the enclosure?  Or is it being used the way it's meant.....user interaction via the screen being on the outside of the panel? 

    Was also intrigued by "it comes raging back".  Does this timeline match some MTBF on the TIG componentry?  In that the TIG is making far more interference after a certain amount of use on new tips etc?

    Hi Ausman,

    It is being used as it was meant - operator interface, and I did consider that.  There is something there however that also references your second question.  There are two weld stations on this machine, let's call them WS1 and WS2.   The V570 is positioned in an operator box that is mounted slightly to the right of the entire machine.

    WS1's welder is only 3-4 feet from the V570, but it never produces this problem.  WS2 is about 10 feet from the V570, and it's the one that causes the issue.  Granted, that not a lot of range difference, but if the design of the V570 were the suspect, I would think it would error out with either or both welders.  But no, it's only the furthest one.

    That's the reason I've been focusing on mitigating the RF noise.  It's frustrating because I feel like the answer is staring me in the face, (the difference between the welders), and somehow I'm missing it.

  3. Hello All,

    I have a robotic welding application, using a Unitronics V570 with ethernet communications to a motion controller, 2 robots and a camera system, all Modbus TCP.  About a year ago, we switched the plasma welder on the line to TIG welders.  This was an enormous cost savings over the old ones, which were obsolete anyhow.

    Buuuuttt... (You knew there was a "but" coming somewhere, didn't you?)  Since the conversion we have had an intermittent-but-persistent problem where when one of the welders strikes, it knocks out the ethernet communications.  The TIG torch uses a burst of RF to establish the arc, and this is the moment the drop takes place, if it happens at all, which it can go weeks without happening, and then it comes raging back.

    I've taken a plethora of steps to try and correct this issue:

    1. The machine is more heavily grounded than my smart-alec teenage daughters.  I've checked the paths to ground for everything on the system, and I cannot find anything I've missed in terms of grounding.
    2. Shielded Cat5e cables throughout, then took the additional step of replacing those with fiber optics.  The longest single conventional cable is now 2 meters in length, and isolated from the rest of the system.
    3. Replaced the V570 and the ethernet card.

    In terms of troubleshooting, I added some counters to the PLC program, and it appears the the link is being lost.  It reconnects automatically, but by then, it's burned a hole in the part.  For mitigation, I switched some of the responsiblity for the welding movement from the PLC to the motion controller, so even if communication is lost for 1 second, the welding process continues unabated, and comms are restored before the weld move finishes.

    The nature of the drop (link lost) makes me think the issue is somewhere with the PLC itself.  The fiber optic convertor for it is located in the same operator panel, connected by a 1 meter shielded cable, all contained within a fully grounded enclosure.

    I'm thinking a different ethernet card may be in order.  I've pack-ratted several of these over the years, but can someone explain to me the difference between the V200-19-ET1, the V200-19-ET2, and the V200-ET-E?  And is there some version that offers more robust performance for electrically noisy environments?

     

    Thanks!

     

    TM

     

  4. Thanks guys,

    My sockets are tied up doing real-time communications to a couple of robots, a camera system, and now a motion controller, all on Modbus TCP.  The latency of a juggling scheme would be fatal.

    And I would give my last remaining tooth for the V700 to be available in a V570 form factor.

    So I guess I'll pick out an adapter and see how far I get.  I'll keep you posted on the results.

    Thanks again!

     

    TM

  5. Greeting all!

     

    I am about to start a Visilogic project on an existing machine that will force me to surrender my last available ethernet socket, and it is causing me great emotional anguish.

    I was considering a serial to wifi adapter to allow me to at least keep my precious wireless connectivity, even if it means sacrificing overall communication speed.  Has anybody else done this successfully, and if so, what did you use?

     

    Thanks!

    TM

  6. Hello All,

    So I've now tried to install Visilogic on 3 laptops in total, one running Windows 7 and 2 running Windows 10.  I have three versions I am working with, 9.8.65 (latest) and 9.8.0 and 9.7.0 under Swapper.

    The Windows 7 laptop, after installing according to directions, including ripping Visilogic out completely and a fresh install, I cannot get 9.8.65 or 9.7.0  to work.  Both throw the Runtime Error 9 subscript.  Strangely,  9.8.0 loads fine.

    On the first Windows 10 (an Asus tablet, woefully underpowered), I can get 9.8.65 and 9.8.0 to work, but 9.7.0 throws an error.

    On the second Windows 10 laptop (an also-underpowered HP) I can get 9.8.0 to work, but neither of the others.

    So at this point, running any Visilogic reliably means loading up an XP virtual machine and running from in there, with all the performance hit that entails.

    I normally use Ubuntu linux at home, and I've been running apps in both Flatpak and Snap container formats.  Windows doesn't support either of these (naturally) but it does support Docker.  I am wondering how feasible it would be to provide Visilogic in a container, and if that would clear away some of the problems we keep having with version changes and OS updates breaking our system?

    Just an idea.

    Thanks!

     

  7. Hi Ausman,

    The original problem surfaced running on bare-metal Windows 7.  I installed Visilogic into a Virtual Machine to mitigate the problem and be able to work on my equipment again.

    I haven't tried any compatibility mode changes yet, had a terrible experience with that many years ago.  Things have probably (?) improved since then, so I may take another shot at it.

    Thanks for all the help!

     

    TM

  8. On 1/17/2018 at 8:56 AM, Cara Bereck Levy said:

    Hi Tim!
    The socket limitation is a hardware one. I believe that  a "new V570-compatible ethernet module" might be possible. This sort of thing is generally market-driven; if a number of distributors get requests and passes them on, for example.
    However, the V700 is a good deal, and the HMI screen is superior...you may want to consider it.

     

    Hi Cara!

    Form factor is an issue for me, this is an existing installation, with 30+ complex screens that I don't want to have to redraw.  Changing the ladder program to accommodate a different sort of ethernet card would be just fine though.

    As for market demand, pretty sure folks have been asking for more than 4 sockets since the V280 days :D

    Thanks!

     

    Edit:  On a related note, on this very project of which I speak, I have two robots and a vision system connected on Modbus TCP.  I have one socket left (Socket 1) for programming via wireless router.

    Due to some obsolete servo drives, I are now moving to a different motion scheme, which involves a separate motion controller that connects via - you guessed it - Modbus TCP.   Bye-bye convenient wireless programming, hello serial port.

    So this one is kind of a big deal for me, personally.

  9. This is not the first time I've seen this, but I think it's the first time I ever brought it up:

    I am using UTC to a data table to date/time-stamp an hourly production output.  On my first sample, the UTC returned: 3724498800

    I used this formula to convert it in Excel:  =(F24/86400)+DATE(1900,1,1)  where F24 contains the UTC value.

    This produced a result, after formatting, of 1/8/18 3:00 PM

    Which would be great - except today is 1/9/18 :)

    Simple enough to correct for with DATE(1900,1,2), but the inaccuracy is concerning.  Am I doing something incorrectly?

    Edit:  PS, I checked the Real Time Clock from Info Mode and it is correct.

    Thanks!

     

    TM

  10. In general, I also avoid this, but on the other hand, I like to keep reasonably current.  This was the last project under 9.3.0, so upgrading it also eliminated a version from Swapper.

    The transition went smoothly enough, only one major hiccup.  I had a Modbus TCP PHR function block that was writing to memory address 0x402 in the target device, and it spontaneously changed to decimal "4" out of the blue.  I corrected it, and communication was restored.  The peculiar thing is, there are two of these FB in the program, but only one was "mutated".

    On a side note, we also have an AB SLC running on their OS version 307, and programming in RS Logix 500 version 7.  We never upgraded because we have never needed to, and still don't - only two of these in the building.

    We needed to get some spare parts, so I contacted our local vendor, and they informed us we would have to purchase the spare processor with the latest firmware (around $2k for 1 card!) and our RSLogix would not support it, so we would need to buy that too ($2500 more!).  Of course, we could always sign up for a Tech Connect contract that we would never use, but includes software upgrades, etc etc etc.

    Just one more reason I love Unitronics - we could actually have this discussion about whether or not to update.  With Rockwell, it's forced on you, a planned-obsolescence money-making scheme...  grrrrr,,,

  11. Hi guys,

    I have an older project on a V570 that needs replaced.  It's a very intricate project with alot of Modbus TCP and lots of CanOpen communications.

    I'm trying to upgrade to the latest OS first, but if I run into any issues, I'd like to clone the project from the original V570, along with the older OS, and restore it into the new unit.

    I was wondering if this is a viable approach, and if there are any "gotchas" I should watch for.

    Edit:  The original is programmed in Visilogic 9.3, the new one is 9.8.9.

    Thanks!

     

    TM

  12. Well, that was less painful than I thought.

    I installed the wireless USB adapter and it appeared in the network manager as "Wireless Adapter 4". It has it's own listing in the Windows 7 wifi manager, and can select every network independently.

    So for laughs, I left my laptop wifi on "PlantWifi" and selected one of my machine networks, and boom - I was in. Well, not quite boom, it's fairly slow, but it worked. I used my phone to remote to the laptop and was able to manipulate everything. On top of that, I could still reach the internet and get email.

    For my next trick, I'll set up some wireless profiles with fixed IP addresses and see if that improves the speed any.

  13. Greetings all,

    Not strictly a Visilogic question, but related.

    Like a lot of facilities, ours has a plant-wide wifi connection for internet access on the floor, etc.  And like a lot of people, I am using wifi to connect to my equipment for programming and troublshooting.  Each of my machines has it's own wireless router, so connecting is as simple as changing my wifi connection from SSID "PlantWifi" to "Mill5", and I can connect without cables or opening doors.

    Now I've got a new challenge - I need to be able to remote into my laptop to help maintenance troubleshoot if I am not in the building.  I can remote into my laptop as long as it is on "PlantWifi", but lose my connection once I tie into "Mill5" (no internet to the machines)

    So my thought was to bind my laptop internal adapter to "PlantWifi" for remoting, then use a second USB wireless adapter to connect to "Mill5".  Turns out this is a lot more challenging than I thought it would be.  Windows 7 wants to route everything across one or the other, and it seems there is little control for this.

    Options I've considered - 

    1.  IP filtering in the laptop - the machine networks have a small range of IPs in common within their own setups, so force traffic with that IP across the USB nic.

    2.  Sandboxing or a virtual machine to allow Visilogic access to only see the USB nic, but that seems like a lot of overhead.

    3.  Been seeing programs online like ForceBind, but apparently that would somehow hack Visilogic (insert hooks, they call it) to restrict it to the USB nic, not very comfortable with that idea.  Also, these utilities all seem pretty old and unmaintained.

    For the record, connecting them all to factory LAN is not an option.

    So my question is, has anybody here done something like this?  And if so, what did you use to pull it off?

     

    Thanks,

    TM

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