ahoover

Is this another solution? Just learned to use the copy byte function in the logic menu.

Jason Hartley, That would be greatly appreciated!! I'm actually using a Unistream PLC, but should be able to get what I need from the vlp. Thank You ------------------------------------------- 6 hours later, this post still not approved by a moderator so will just edit it.... I did get a working program now. Figured out to always use modbus address zero. I'm sure I could still learn a lot from a working example....

I am using the exact same controller specified in the first post(CMMO-ST-C5-1-LKP). Am wondering if somebody that got it to work could give me any pointers to get started. Am pretty sure the setup is done correctly on the controller, but I'm having problems figuring out what the modbus addresses should be. If it is not too much harder, I would like to access some parameters as well as the cyclic data. I want to do direct positioning. I appreciate any help!

The button is setting a bit on press and resetting the same bit on release. A manual machine process is being activated when a particular HMI is loaded, and the button is being actively pressed by the user, this particular button does not initiate a change screen. The problem as described happens only when the following steps happen: user is pressing button to activate manual process, a critical machine fault occurs (emergency stop etc.) while HMI button is being pressed, the critical fault triggers an "action", the "action" unloads the process screen. In this scenario the bit linked to the button is not reset, and if no steps are taken to reset the bit otherwise, the manual machine process will resume when the process HMI is again loaded. It is not a problem to reset the bit with code, I was mainly wondering if the button functioning in this manner is as the developers intended.

Just curious if anybody else has experienced this issue. I have an HMI button that needs to be "pressed & held" to run a process. The button is setting a bit on "press" and resetting the bit on "release". This all works fine, except in the case of an "action" causing an HMI change while the button is pressed, this causes the button to never release, or at least the bit never gets reset. My ladder code has to monitor for an HMI change and reset the bit when this happens, which seems a bit clunky compared to how smooth most things operate with Unistream. Or am I missing something simple.... Allen

I did not install the networking cable myself. Should get them to make sure it is isolated from any power lines. Do believe they ran a Cat 6 cable for what its worth...

At the very least it sounds like I'm not the only one experiencing these types of issues. I could take another look at the email logic see if anything can be cleaned up. Thought I had the perfect workaround for email encryption limitations with smtp2go.com, but now some other issues are raising their ugly heads. Am not using any XB's, and the only TCP functions are remote connection with Unitronics apps and email. Usually for projects requiring internet connection we use Unistream. I'm thinking this project might be an upgrade candidate, and be the perfect opportunity to try out the new 5" unistream with built-in IO's!!

Am doing Modbus RTU, it is pretty straight forward, setting speed and reading status from a couple VFD's. Allen

I don't believe turning on SB 168 changed anything. In this case socket 2(SB 149 turns on when socket 2 is connected) is listening on port 20258, socket 0 (connected = SB 147) is listening on port 20259. So they connect on port 20258, SB 149 turns ON, they disconnect, socket 2 closes and SB 149 turns OFF. Same for port 20259, though they usually use port 20258. The problem is, sometimes when they close the connection from their phone app, SB 149 stays ON like somebody is still connected on port 20258. In reality nobody is connected anymore but socket 2 did not close and can therefore not accept any new connections. This was their problem from the beginning, and the only option they had was to get to the actual panel and re-power the PLC which in turn re-initialized socket 2. This still happens for them occasionally, but now when socket 2 "freezes up" they change the setting in their phone app to port 20259 which allows them in on socket 0. The magic in the program is that when they connect on socket 0/20259, SB 147 turns on which re-initializes socket 2 so it can accept connections again. If this doesn't make sense, maybe someone else can explain it better. I still have no idea why the sockets are not closing sometimes, though the above solution is working okay for them. Now email is a different story! Twice now the PLC has gone crazy when trying to send an email, I witnessed it once when sending a test email from it. I think it re-powered, because it disconnected my remote connection, when I was able to get back on, it seemed the ladder program was no longer running. I could get nothing to respond anymore, and noticed some timers that were used in the program had random really high values loaded to their presets. Nothing was sane until I completely re-loaded the program to the PLC. At this time we have email disabled, because we can't afford to have this happening. Am starting to think this PLC is jinxed!! Thanks, Allen

I am also not the expert on networking, else I wouldn't be having these issues, right? I understand you basically need a socket for each different type of network function, remote connection, email etc.. I have one socket set to TCP, server, on port 20258. After this socket is initialized it "listens" for an incoming connection request on port 20258 from a remote client. Another socket is set to TCP, client, on port 20256, it reaches out an makes a connection to the email server when the program needs to send an email. The 3rd socket is set to UDP_RAW on port 20257, it is used by the DNS resolver function to resolve the email server address. To be clear, the issue was never dropping a connection because of a time out or something the connection to seems to be plenty fast enough. The issue was always socket 2 not closing when the remote client disconnected, though it would only happen randomly. Interestingly, the problem only seems to occur when using the cellphone app. My idea was to use socket 0 on port 20259 as an alternate connection channel, which I have done and tested already. Now when when a connection is established on socket 2, the rising pulse of SB 149, initializes socket 0, if a connection is made on socket 0, the rising pulse of SB 147 initializes socket 2. This worked well when I tested it. Allen

I am the boiler tech for dkmiller16. Socket 2 in the program is setup as a slave, protocol is TCP, port is 20258. The problem they are experiencing is that sometimes the socket does not close when they disconnect from the app. I did change power up value of SB 168 to 1, though it appears that would only apply when the physical network link got lost? There is one unused socket left, I guess it could be used as an alternate remote connection port. I might do this, and make the rising pulse of SB 149 initialize the alternate socket and vice versa, this would always keep the one fresh. Any reasons why the socket would not be closing properly? On another note, I think we got email working properly thanks to a tip from Unitronics support. In the past mail.com accounts worked very well for me, but its been a year or 2 since the last Vision project that needed email. This time around the mail.com accounts were barely working at all, strangely enough it would about once every ten times. Most times the socket would connect, SB 345(email send bit) would briefly turn on then off again, and email status would stay at 1/in progress. Anyway, the following option has seemed to work well so far, and I have not seen anything on this forum mentioning it, so will do it here. Create an account with https://www.smtp2go.com/. This is just an email server, you do not have an email address with them. You create a username and password, that are used in the Vision email setup as email authentication. Server address is mail.smtp2go.com, various ports are available to be used. In the "From" field in Vision email setup, you enter any email address you want to send from, can be gmail, hotmail, whatever. The smtp2go account is free for a certain amount of emails per month. Thanks for all responses to these issues, and thanks for your patience Drew, it has been a pleasure working with you!

I also think it would be great to be able to launch a "message box" from an action. This would allow ladder logic to pose a question/confirmation. These are just some thoughts as I'm working at a project. I think highly of the Unistream platform already. Allen

I think it would be really valuable to make the user controls(maybe only the combo box) more dynamic, by being able to link them to a column in an indexed data table. The control would return the index number of the selected DT row which could be used to retrieve info from that DT row. I really like the "Custom Control" but they can only be used for static option lists. Thanks for considering! Allen

What I am understanding then, is that even if we get the Sixnet gsm modem to work with PLC, it will still only work in areas with 2G. I am hoping we can get this situation resolved with a SIM card from Kore Telematics

Yes, the Sixnet does have serial GSM (see this link: http://www.picscontrols.com/assets/files/Industrial%20Pro%206000.pdf ). The V130 controller needs to send & receive SMS messages. This forces me to use a compatible serial GSM modem, instead of an ethernet connection. My concern with the Sixnet is doing a "Modem Initialization" from Visilogic, as it is not a supported modem.

I have a project using the Enfora 41J modem kit with V130 for SMS messaging(send & receive). The modem was working perfectly until it was shipped to its final location now it will not initialize anymore. A very new AT&T tower is close by in the area of this project & if I check AT&T coverage map it is not showing 2G coverage. I have not been able to find definite proof, but suspect this modem needs 2G to work. Does anyone else have experience with this? Will Untronics soon supply a newer modem that is more compatible? Has the Sixnet IndustrialPro® SN-6000 series routers ever been used as a GSM modem with Unitronics? This might be a solution for the issue stated above, but I wish to verify that it can be initialized to work with Unitronics PLC. Thank You, Allen

I have found that it works to plug a USB mouse into one of the USB ports on the UniStream. A message will come on the display asking to do a reset, after that a mouse pointer appears & you can click on HMI elements similar to touching them. In one of my applications, I use the "System>General>Touched Bit" & "System>General>Coordinate X/Coordinate Y" values(for detecting location of a touch on HMI). Unfortunately, a mouse click does not activate these values, but otherwise it is a really neat feature.

Eyal Koren, At the time of this issue I had been in contact with support & they looked at the logic. After tinkering with the issue for a while we found that resetting the retained tags takes care of it. Since support had never heard of this issue previously, I thought I would post on here to see if anybody else ever saw this problem. Thanks, ahoover

Has anybody else had issues with TON timers?? Several times I have seen where the timer seems to get stuck with the "out" bit ON. It's a very simple logic where the timers out bit is used as a N/C bit to activate the timer, thus the timer is constantly cycling. I have seen where the out bit goes high & stays high until I "Reset Retained Tags" in UniApps. This may have occurred after a new application was downloaded to the UniStream. I'm using latest version of UniLogic & have all OS files up to date on the UniStream. Thanks, Ahoover

Henny, I tried to post this morning but it did not show up, so will try again. It looks like you are correct, Modbus RTU can only be used with RS485, I missed one important line in the manual. I am kinda disappointed in Red Lion tech support, as I gave them all details on hardware & what I'm trying to do, they did not point out to me this is not possible using RS232. I have gotten this working now by setting the display comm to RCL & using a protocol function block to write a value to counter A on the display. Many thanks!! ahoover Red Lion PAX2D with Serial RLC Comm.vlp

Henny, It appears you are right about Modbus RTU only being available with RS485, I missed that one important line in the manual. It's a bit disappointing in Red Lion tech support, as I told them my hardware and what I'm trying to do, and they never pointed this out. I set the display to RCL comm. & used a protocol send function to write a value to counter A which is working fine. Thanks a lot for your help!! ahoover

I have constructed the cable using a standard Unitronics programming cable with one end cut off, the wires stripped & fastened to screw terminals on the Red Lion RS232 card. The option card I am using does not have a DB9 connector. Modbus comm works flawlessly with a second V350. I have been in contact with Unitronics tech support over the last couple days, but at this point we have not gotten any breakthroughs. I appreciate the time & effort! ahoover

When I use serial monitor on V350, this is what I see: Tx: 02 03 9E 22 00 01 0B DB Rx: 02 03 30 FC The DIP switches are set to RS232. The Modbus function status goes to "4" for 3 times then goes to "5". ahoover

The communication I have been getting as specified above(tx to tx & rx to rx) appears to simply be a loopback, the same results happen when connecting tx & rx wires together. I did not realize this was possible. So the problem remains of getting the correct wiring connection to work. ahoover

Thanks, but have used that site already. Am pretty sure I have tried the correct wiring connections with no success. ahoover