Walkerok

Hi Steve, The way you phrased your original question it sounds like you are using an electric oven. If electric, I assume that there are SCRs that control the temperature of the oven. The SCRs do generate noise as they switch on and off and it is possible for the noise created to put in some amount of voltage into the earth ground of the entire oven. Is your thermocouple a grounded or ungrounded type (if it is grounded change to an ungrounded type and this will probably have a positive effect)?. It is very possible that no amount of shielding and grounding of drain wires will help this condition because the source of the noise is the threads of how you secure a connection into your oven. (I am guessing that you have a metal connector of some sort at the thermocouple end). If possible .... to test this, suspend the thermocouple in the oven without making any grounded connection (don't let the thermocouple/sheath touch anything metal). If your issue goes away then the noise is in the ground of the oven and you need to make your thermocouple connection with a non conductive material (ceramic) and this will fix the problem. The better your oven is grounded the less significant the noise will become, but there are situations where the overall noise can not be brought to zero and electronic filtering should be employed. The historical manifestation I have seen with noise being on the ground of the equipment is as you describe it. It is not necessarily a quickly rising/falling signal but can be just an overall shift either up or down when power is provided to the SCR electric element controller. The better you ground the smaller the shift will be in magnitude. Good Luck Keith

Very funny I really liked those.

Ok I just had to do a double take on that one. I literally have dozens of different V570 and V1210 programs that all use SI 252 for a multitude of functions. ............ They have work fine and correctly. When I look at a PLC with debug turned on and I monitor SI252 it shows the correct screen number for every screen I go to for both SI252 and SI251(previous screen). I know in Visilogic it says for standard only, but to be honest I just figured that somewhere in the past this had changed and the notes were just in need of updating because I have been using SI252 for the last 2.5 or so years and have 250 - 300 PLCs out and about that all work as I need them to. I have worked enough problems that just because the answer seems to work it really does not when tested more vigorously. Have I stumbled into a magical place where this only works for me by accident and is going to blow up in my face sometime in the future? Thanks Keith

Cograts on what looks to be a very nice completed project.

Hello Maakari, You have many choices available to you. You did not say what model of V350 you have so you need to post that here so we can see what its capabilities are on the hardware. However, as a general statement, with 7 different driven motors involved you are probably going to want to set up communications with whatever VFDs you select to use. 1) VFDS - what do you need to do? Run all seven motors at the same time but at different possible speeds? Ramp up one motor then when required bring up more and more motors until you are running 6 motors at full speed and just the last one a a variable speed? Are you going to bring up all 7 motors all the time and make all 7 run the same speed? 2) Sensors - If you have 4 sensor types you need to monitor then you are goint to either need 4 analog inputs to be able to see these or buy sensors that have communications capability and look at all of them over whatever communications protocol you select. 3) Change settings - The V350 mhas a real time clock and UTC time control that if programmed correctly will allow you to make decision by 24 hour time, day, month, year. If I might be so bold.....since you are looking to replace an old system that sounds like it has no controls at all other than an on/off switch thaqt you try to keep this an uncomplex as you can. What do you need to respond to and how do you need to respond when it happens. It is unlikely that knowing what the time is (other than building working hours/days of the week) is of much value. Just because it is Febrauary 8 today is probably not important, season and month is not a good measure as to what to do. Think about your project in detail and define what things are important to your process and write back. We are not able to give useful help without you giving many more details about what, how and why. Keith

To add to Joes comment. The official sunset of 2G is scheduled for 2017. However there are portions of the country where 2G has already been cut off. AT&T has been cutting off 2G service in several areas to allow the towers in question to be retasked over to LTE service. We have already had several remote scada units where we have been forced to change the customers hardware over to 3G or higher service. As you can imagine this is a painful conversation to have with a customer when they may have just purchased their hardware just a few months ago. Also like joe says even if a modem is not one of the select models in the short list of pre-programmed modems in visilogic it is possible to get other modems to work.

Well the results are in and I was not correct on the condensation hypothesis. The final end customer has placed a chemical injection pump in tandem with one of the expected devices and there was no noise canceling hardware installed on it. Even worse the output they decided to piggy back off of changes state once every 30 - 120 seconds depending on conditions. How do I know this? Using the capabilities the Enhanced vision products have I put a data logging .CSV write to the SD card function that took the status of every input, output, analog input, analog output, alarm, and system messages every 1 second. I then had a the PLC create a new file every day at midnight. Just to follow a complete process. The two units without any noise canceling hardware on outside relays, starters, and valve coils failed at least once per day. (Look at the previous post to see the 4 configurations tested) Over the same time period the two units with AC and DC noise mitigation hardware installed ran 24 hours a day with no problems. After 3 days of failures the noise canceling parts were installed and all 4 tested units then had AC and DC noise devices. After installation of the noise cancelling hardware all 4 sites have run flawlessly. By logging this way I was able to narrow down my focus to just a single output from the PLC and further determine that the contactor to run the chemical pump was the cause of the noise. I was also able to confirm that the PLC was absolutely, definitely, positively, without any question or ambiguity ceasing processor function and staying stuck on whatever was being executed at the time of the brain freeze until a loss of power allowed a system reset. The 120 VAC noise mitigation parts are a combination of a capacitor and resistor OKAYA product number XAB1201 The 24VDC noise mitigation (transient voltage suppressor) parts are a Bi-directional zener diode at 28 volts. These are part number SA28CACT made by Littlefuse. The good new is the fixes are not expensive and we found them. The bad news.....the end customer changed something then swore they never touched anything and cause a whirlwind of pain and anguish that we have to pay for as a company. Oh well welcome to industrial electronics. For FLEX727 On the watchdogs I had to have installed it is an ugly adder but works well. There is a company AIROTRONICS that has two watchdog timers (one with excitation at power up and one with excitation only when the first pulse is received). I thought I could the model with excitation on power up and it works but only once (this is part number TGLR ) The other product is what actually worked for me and is part number TGMPL(several more selectable configurations but search this number in Google and it will come up). To make this work I had to run the first signal pulse through the normally closed contact on the relay. The relay worked but a little too well. There is not a long enough time delay to power down the PLC before the power is re-engaged to create a PLC reset. I had to add a delay on make timer along with this to actually cut off power long enough to create a PLC reset. (tried to find a usable reset on the PLC CPU and there is not one that mere mortals can access). There is a rest on the CPU as one would expect but soldering wires to the surface mount chips was way beyond my mandate and beyond anything I could ask a field guy to install. I will be talking to the timer maker to see if they can add a time delay on the reset function and then it will be a clean installation. For the creators Why does the internal watchdog built into the CPU of the V570 not ever figure out the CPU is locked and reset the CPU. looking at the wiring diagram for the main processor it has the separate watchdog circuitry I would expect it to have. Is this something that has been accidentally changed in a past firmware update and forgotten ever since? Is it an intentional choice....if so please explain? I am not trying to shoot arrows, I love my Unitronics-products and they have worked well for many applications for years, but this is a serious condition that should be investigated. It is an easy fix in firmware (at least it appears to be) it just needs to be done. (or redone as it were) Thank You Keith

I have watched this post for a couple of weeks hoping magic would strike because I have multiple V570 units that behave very much in the same way. I have a single customer with 100+ V570 units. The mix is approximately 49 units installed in a common cabinet with a VFD running the motor application. Exactly 51 of the units are on soft starts running their motor applications. All PLCs are the same exact hardware, same program, same power supplies, but VFD installed units are ALL ok and I have 11 soft start units stopping at different intervals for unknown reasons. (stopping is not stopping by the way it is the PLC frozen with whatever it was doing last and is only correctable by power cycling) Facts: All 100 units: V570-57-T20B V200-18-E6B Installed outside in either NEMA 3R or NEMA 4/12 enclosures About 20 of the units were created when Visilogic was before version 9.7.9 was in effect The rest are either version 9.7.9 or 9.7.24 Now those of you that work with the Unitronics brand a lot may have noticed that version 9.7.9 had (has) some serious bugs, however 9.7.24 seems to be pretty solid with all defects from 9.7.9 correct (or fixed enough I can't find anything particularly wrong) So let’s go through the rest of it. What are the major differences between a soft start and a VFD panel. The obvious difference is noise, however all of the VFD units are fine and VFDs are dramatically more noisy than a soft start. How about the installation? I had a tech that works for me go to 6 sites and at the first site the installation looks like it was done by 3 year olds. So aha we think its just bad installations. However, after the other 5 sites are visited they are text book installations with good grounding, no shortcuts taken on shielded cable, clean connections with no stranded wire flaring out......NEC would be proud. What is the other major difference between a VFD panel and a soft start panel.....heat! VFDs make heat and soft starts do not. So the big difference between the multiple installations is that the VFD the boxes are almost always warmer than ambient temperatures and soft start boxes are not. This leads me to what I believe could be the cause of all the problems and that is not noise but is condensation. If you look a dew point charts relative to humidity it does not take cold temperatures to create condensation, but just a large enough temperature differential (at low enough overall temperatures) between the outside ambient temperature and the internal box temperature. I should mention that all of my soft start panels are installed in NEMA 4/12 enclosures with no venting or cooling fans (soft starts don’t need them) all of the VFD panels have cooling fan systems that allow outside air to be used to cool off the heat created from the VFDs. So I don’t have a final answer yet, but we have installed different solutions on 4 of the affected panels. Installed AC and DC noise suppression on all outputs and a heater to the enclosure Installed a 120VAC noise filter just ahead of the DC power supply and a heater Installed both AC and DC surge suppression , 120VAC noise suppression and a heater to the enclosure Installed only a heater and nothing else. I will report back after I hopefully have a conclusion, but my gut is telling me that condensation is the cause and not noise (Unitronics does not formalin coat anything), however, since I am not in the business of guessing I decided to alter 4 sites with different solution possibilities to the multiple test sites to come to what will be the real answer. I have been pressed to give a solution before I actually find an answer so I will be installing external watchdog timers on the remaining 45 units by programming an output of the PLC to do nothing but pulse back and forth every 5 seconds. If the PLC freezes in either position the watchdog will reset the 24 VDC power to the PLC. Please do not respond to this post by asking me if I have replaced hardware, firmware, shielding, VFD carrier frequencies…….I have literally done everything that I know can be done at least twice over the last 7 months. I started out thinking this was a hardware problem, then a firmware problem, grounding problem, shielding problem and nothing has worked. The only thing I had not tried is adding heat to the enclosures so that is where I am at now with the 4 units. If anyone thinks of something other than what I have mentioned here please post. Wish me luck …I need it Keith

There is an issue that version 9.7.9 causes images to not show up correctly and the invisible keypads you talked about. The buttons are still there and if you touch the screen things actually happen but you can not see anything. If you go up to the current downloadable version 9.7.24 it seems to fix everything and all is good again. Going back is fine, but if you have newer hardware you need to program like a SAMBA 9.4 will not recognize the hardware. Keith

I have taken a quick look at the Danfoss information for Modbus and it looks like the VFD only supports Modbus on an RS485 connection and not a TCP connection. The V1210 can only communicate by using Modbus TCP and not through the more generic TCP/IP communications. Talk to your Danfoss supplier and see if there is a Modbus TCP option that I have missed. Keith

Hi Pete. A couple of things after taking a look at the program. You do not actually need the PWM block. The SB3 1 second pulse is actually on for 1/2 second and off for 1/2 second, so in line 4 of the program just make it true SB3 on one line and false SB3 on the other. On the actual color image you want to have shown you can make it a little easier on yourself. You can delete line 3 all together. Leave MB1000 as tue on line 4 and on line 5 change MB1000 (negative transition) to MB1000 not true. This will let you have only two rungs doing the job of the original 4 you had. Since I don't know if on your multiple images that you want to show in the full program if you are concerned with just one image at a time or multiples at the same time. I would assume that you have multiple images that could be active randomly at the same time. You have the following MI1000 shows the final image you want in the image by list. You are using MI1100 to put in the image you want to be shown to MI1000. Multiple images are just the same............. MI1000=image 1 (by list), MI1001=image 2, MI1003=image 3, Etc. MI1100 is stored into MI1000, MI1101 is stored into MI1001, ...Etc. The decision to flash to white is MB1000 for image 1, MB1001 for image 2 and so on. That is really all there is to it. Here is a sample 3 image flasher. You obviously have to have logic behind what color you want to show and when you want it to flash but for what its worth. Good luck Keith Sorry I uploaded the program as a V570. I did not have a V1210 to run this on and forgot to change it back. Image flasher test.vlp

What model of PLC do you have to use? Or are you still in the selection process. Here is a substantial document on the selection and use of different types of control valves. http://www.documentation.emersonprocess.com/groups/public/documents/book/cvh99.pdf Look specifically at page 35 to see the general characteristics of a butterfly valve (and globe valve). You can see that the first 10% of movement (of an overall arc of 0-90gegrees) there is no flow through a butterfly valve. There is extremely little flow until you get past 20% of full open and then pretty much maximum flow is achieved at 60% open. I am trying to tell you that I believe it is important that you have a more precise way to control the actual position of the two valves than by applying voltage to either the open or close inputs of the Belimo motor. It appears that the Belimo would respond to 2-10VDC for a modulating control signal if you buy the Belimo model that has that as a feature. Depending on overall impedance of the valves you can send one analog voltage signal from the PLC to both valve motors. Keith

You did not say what model of controller you are intending to use. I tried looking up the model of valves you are using online and could find nothing on them. I have many questions: 1. Is this a closed loop hydronic heating system in which the temperature and pressure changes of the returning water are slower but heat load can be radically different? 2. Is this a consumption loop where you are sending out water to many locations and circulating so that hot water is always close to the outlet points? (large pressure/flow rate changes) 3. Is this a combination of both items 1 and 2? 4. Are the valves you have power to open and power to close without any kind of spring return? 5. Are the valves gate, ball, butterfly, or globe type? (very different flow curves at the same percentage open positions) 6. When you say the valves will be in series are you saying that you want to have a digital open and close contact where the open power feeds open on the main valve and close on the bypass valve and the close signal powers close on the main valve and open on the bypass valve? Assuming that the valves are power to open and power to close with no spring return then you will be looking to control these valves by bump control where you dedicate close and open outputs from the PLC to both valves independently (4 different outputs). You then will have to write logic to use the PID output to make a decision on how often and how long to apply voltage to either the open or close of either valve to bring your process back into control. I have great reservations in your ability to do this well, or at all, without some sort of position feedback from the valves, but I respect your need and desire to make this work. If you changed your valves to 4-20ma or 0-10Vdc control then you would not have to have the positioning feedback to try and make this work, but because (I think) you are manipulating valve position by motor power you will have no way to know if you have moved the bypass valve too far or the main valve too little. When everything is new the motors may travel at pretty much the same speed, but even new motors generally move faster whether closing or opening and will typically have different travel speeds at different points along the open/close of the valve due to different level of resistance to water pressure or the total amount of valve contact to the body of the valve in the different positions (also break away torque requirements will affect everything also). This level of control theory discussion on what valves and piping structure you should use is way beyond the capabilities of a forum like this to really help you, but we can help with basic PLC component suggestions, generic control thoughts, and specific programming needs. Best regards Keith

I got it to work by putting a password into the ladder logic, but I still have the problem of sending uncontrolled files out to end customers. Can I revert back to 9.6 and make a clone in that version until such time as 9.7 is repaired for the full clone function? Thanks Keith

Hi Eyal, thank you for your response. Ok so downloaded a program to a new V570 and have gone into info mode. 1) I press SD 2) I press Application 3) And I can not progress any further Download to SD is ignored when I touch it and the message "Password Missing" is at the bottom of the screen. I have not put passwords into my projects before, am I required to put a password into the project to be able to do this? Also when I am done, will the file be able to be "PLC NAME" locked like I need it to be? Thanks Keith

I have recently experienced this as well but on V570 units. The only answer was for my case that I had to connect with a laptop to each and every PLC (14 in total) and update all firmware in the PLCs. After firmware update I had to download a blank program and then download the original program again. This is the first time such a thing has happened and specifically it happened with PLCs programmed with Visilogic 9.6 and then using an SD card to put in an updated file where 9.7 was used to make the clone. The actual program was the same graphics 100% on every screen and the actual program change was in the ladder only. Best I can figure out, the PLC firmware, BIN, OS and the other files that can be updated when connecting with a laptop and not are possible to update with a cloned file (clones can only have an updated OS imbedded into the file) are playing badly with each other. I use the clone files exclusively to update customer programs in the field because it is THE ONLY WAY I can protect my intelectual property. All other methods of getting a new program file to a PLC that is in a customer's location leave me open to the theft of my programs by the customers. (almost 100% of our equipment installations are in the middle of a field somewhere with no data connections and SD cards with clone files work really well, or at least have in the past). Before someone tells me that I can make a file that is not viewable by the customer that can be download, I already know this, but what I can not do is lock that file to a single serial number of PLC which is exactly what I require so that customers do not purchase the PLC hardware from Ebay and then just load my program over and over again. We do not make our customers pay any money for program development up front and in return they do not own any rights to our programs. I can only recover my programming costs by adding to the price of HMIs sold to that customer. And I won't be able to do that if they get ahold of uncontrolled downloadable program files.

On your 4-20ma linearization you are running out of space to show the value when you dfo the linearization. The linearization function only uses a 16 bit (signed) integer so any number while being manipulated in the function that exceeds 32767 will put out an unusable value for you. Do not use the linearization function and do it long hand using the special system bit SB82. Putting this bit in the corect places will allow you to string two successive 16 bit MI locations together to allow you the use of a functional 32 bit signed integer of space or a number of 2147483647. This will generally give ample size to allow you to do the multiplication required to get the linearization you want. There are several requirements to using this special system bit so read the help section. Just type in SB82 into the "search" box in the help file. Special notes I missed the first time I tried to use this one. 1) All data going into a block where you are going to use the SB82 = extended integer function musr be done by Mis only no constants. If you use a constant in any of the math blocks it will not work. Just force a couple of MIs to the constant falues you want and then use those. 2) Whenever you call this function up the result of the math block you are using will allways need two 'Consecutive" MI locations to store the result in so be careful to mark out your use of MIs in groups of two. 3) Just in case you do not know...there are no decimals in integer math (they are alweays lost) so if you want better accuracy you will multiply your starting numbers by at least 100,1000, or even 10000 so that when you perform the dividing math you will end up with better end results (sometimes those missing fractional numbers in the middle make a huge difference to the end result). Then at the very end divide by your original 100, 1000, or 10000 to end up at a final number with the decimal places you wanted. For example in your original post you asked why you were seeing 220. Because the temperatures pre built into the controller for thermocouples always have one decimal point. Integers do not have decimal points so to successfully show a value of 22.0 on screen you have a value of 220 in the MI and as you know thermcouple values need no linearization. Here is an example of a 4-20 linearization I have used before. The end result has 1 decimal place because the two starting MIs Mi 28 and 29 had a decimal place on screen when the user entered the low and high ranges of the 4-20ma signal. Good luck Keith

I would suggest putting an electrical meter in line with your CT and make double sure that you are actually putting out a 4-20ma signal and not something less. I use IO-ATC8 modules and CTs all the time. I tried to look up your CT but the link shows to be broken and was not able to see any information. Looking at the specs for the CT is says "nominal 24VDC required" It is entirely possible that when connected to the ATC8 the voltage in the loop is falling below your CT required minimom voltages. Keith

I am looking for an opinion. My panel assembly shop has 5 times now managed to install a 1N4007 diode backwards and take out the transistor output of different controllers. I have found some bi-directional Zener diodes that I believe while not as quick as a 1N4007 (and at a slightly raised voltage) will do Ok in the job and take away my shops ability to damage outputs by incorrect installation (all outputs are 24 VDC). The part number is SA28CACT-ND and is advertised as a transient volatage supressor. http://www.littelfuse.com/~/media/electronics/datasheets/tvs_diodes/littelfuse_tvs_diode_sa_datasheet.pdf.pdf is the data page for the device. Let the opinions flow :-)

I am hoping that someone who knows may see this before I have to ship anyway. I have multiple V570 PLC units between 20 - 100 miles apart from each other in Colorado (I am in Oklahoma) and my shop is supposed to record the PLC name before it leaves here, but for whatever reason did not. Typically I would make a full clone and key the full clone by "PLC name", but since I have no PLC names I can not do this. There are no passwords on the PLC wither by the way....if you were wondering. From an old training class I vagely remember a discussion about the ability to make a download file that would have a maximum number of downloads. Anyone have any thoughts. The end game is to have the customer have an updated program for 12 units without the ability of them to run off with the intelectual property. Thanks Keith

You can force any of the screens to come up other than the "start up" screen, but it takes special effort. Every screen has a number that identifies it and can be found by clicking on "View" on the tool bar and then clicking the "HMI Information" button. A small window will pop up that tells you what the SI252 number is associated with every screen. With this information you can write into a net that after first scan you force SI252 to the integer associated with the screen you want to see (or any other event you would want to force a screen where on screen jumps do not make sense). It is easier to just use the "Start Up" screen, but sometimes you want a special screen to pop up for a few seconds then change to a regular running screen (like showing your companies logo and service number for a few seconds on start up). Keith

I have never experienced what you are talking about. Are you absolutly sure it is the output and not the valve. Have you switched one of your other valves to this analog output and your "twitchy" one to a different output. I have a hard time believing that centralized electrical noise is the cuase for this or you would see the event on all of your AO channels. You do not mention what you are actually doing. Is there a high iginition transformer near the one valve or other noisy deivce that would be able to affect only one valve on a local level? It would help if you could post your program here in the forum. I know that you may not want to do that, but the program could be tested in a completely different environment. Keith

Looking good Josh, How has the data usage rate turned out after the router firmware change. Thanks Keith

Since you have two sets of simultaneous contraints the problem becomes one of when one set of conditions is violated which condition is most important pressure or temperature. I can easily see a situation where you will not be able to provide a fast enough flow to keep the temperature stable. I have one question though. If this is a closed loop hydronic heating application what pressure are you making since the water is not actually being consumed you are simple recirculating the water in an infinite loop. It seems the question is how fast do you have to circulate the water to get the heat transfer you want at the end point in at the same time keep the delta T on your boiler to a required amoount (many times 20 degrees so that you do not create condensation on the tubes of the boilers). The faster you move the water through the heating system the more stable your temperature will be, but at the same time the faster you move the water through the more erosion you create on bends, fittings, and valves. It is genrally acceptable to say that you move the fluid through the papes at a rate that returns fluid back to the boiler at 20 degrees cooler than the outgoing water of the boiler andf that if you attempt to close this delta T to less than 20 degrees then you are generally approaching the max flow rate through the pipes you should allow. Hydronic heating is a vastly complicated issue for what on the surface looks like a fairly simple problem. If you only have one point of heat load then it should be possible to make a flow rate that gives the best chance of being stable at the location that you care about. If you input the temperature data for the load point then when temperature drops you speed up flow, if the temperature is too hot slow down flow. I think I am still not understanding what you are exactly doing and I am given not so helpful suggestions. Sorry Keith

The level of inforamtion given is not enough to give an actual answer. Are you controlling between responding fast enough when someone creates a momentary open loop demand (faucet or shower) and the rest of the time where it is a closed loop system and you just want to circulate water so that hot water is avaialble at the end point quickly when required. If this is the case then a PID control setup will probably never work as you want because you will always have long delay periods between usages and there is no consumption where the compounding I and/or D values will get you into trouble. You can force your system to not allow I or D to contribute more than say 20% influence over the PID and that will make it better, but it is still very hard to control. If I have guessed correctly in your application then I would sugest to create a signal following step type routine instead of a PID. While this is more up front work and I am sure that someone out there can make a much more elegant answer this will work. You will want to put some time delay on each step so that electrical noise does not cause your VFD to shimmy shimmy shake eternally. (say 2 seconds for a pressure to be held before taking action) For example: 1) Usable VFD speed range is from 20 - 60Hz so your effective range in 4-20ma is 8.8 - 20ma or 2252 - 4095 output from your PLC to your VFD. 2) you want to hold 80PSI on the line If your set point is 80 PSI, you will make a routine that drives your analog output to your VFD based on striclt how far away you are from that pressure point. set a range from 78 - 82 PSI to control your VFD PSI Output 82 2252 81.9 2298 81.8 2344 81.7 2390 . . . . . . . . 78.2 4003 78.1 4049 78 4095 Like I said before there are more elegant ways but this should do what you need. Good luck Keith