Ausman

Hi all, Probably everyone has made one of these, but even if you have you might find this one useful. The spinner buttons make it much easier to use....sometimes!! It also describes X & Ys to avoid confusion when entering numbers in Visi during a "my brain is tired" session! If I have got any of it wrong please let me know. It doesn't have any number restrictions on it apart from the spinner limitations of 30000, so isn't exactly perfect. However, you can still enter bigger numbers directly in the cell if you need to. For me, it covers most bases pretty well. cheers, and happy using. Aus Unitronics Linz calc.zip

Hi again all, I have a need for running a control system from a 12V battery based solar system (hence innately smooth) that is boosted by a smooth supply which is not needed very often. The untreated voltage ranges from 11.6 to 14.4, and the controller itself will eventually be involved in the switching of the booster. Will likely be a V130 with a full range of direct expansions....AN in/outs, DI & TO....but maybe ROs. I am fully prepared to be running a quality buck boost converter to either run things at a stable 24 or 12. But for greater efficiency I would love to get away from this need and run things direct. Many of the controllers have 12V input, along with the expansion adapters and IOs, (like the "-L" variety) but then we move along the IO array to an IO-TO16, say, and it says the supply must be 20.4V minimum. I have had a peek internally at the SSRs and the specs for them say they can work down to 10V, so: 1). Can the IO-TO16 have this raw voltage of 11.6 to 14.4 applied and work ok? Or does it really need the 20.4 to 28.8 in the specs? TOs suit the job much better than relays. 2). Does everything that says it can run at 12V need a pure 12V or can they tolerate the range I am talking about? I can find a range for the 24V in the spec sheets but nothing about 12V. 3). If some of the components can tolerate the raw voltage, will it upset the entire system if just the modules where 24V is essential are supplied through the buckboost? The 0V will always be common. If I can get away from needing the converter at all it would be a far more efficient setup, but running just a few things instead of the lot will also be more efficient. I can mock all this up and do some testing, but I would really appreciate some proven answers that might save me a lot of time and also perhaps prevent the release of smoke! You do remember that the only reason wires have insulation is to hold the smoke in, don't you?! ha ha. cheers, Aus.

True enough, Joe. That gets rid of the multiple instances, which I agree is infuriating....another Windoze quirk. I cannot understand how something so elementary as reassigning the same thing another port number if it gets plugged in somewhere else on the same puter got through the development stage, let alone into the finished product. It should at least be a user choice type thing during installation, to cover the unusual possibility of wanting to run two or more instances. My issues in the past have also been my (older) collection of 485 and 232 usb converters putting various dud drivers into the driver store, without any really user friendly way of deleting them. Windows then decides that it will use...............THIS one! And if it is a dud, things go kaputsky. You can do tedious manual searches looking for particular names, or strings within the driver files, but that program makes it so much easier. It is powerful, however, so use carefully. These days I only use Shentek converters, never had any issues. They have good isolation as well, and the higher cost is repaid quickly through having such a reliable connection. cheers, Aus

Hi Flex, and thanks for the thought but the answer is no.....no vector ops. Simply a screen on link for some keypad ops in the ladder. All very strange. All of the changes were along the same lines, simply moving 20 or so screen on MBs further up in number to an area that was free, to make their location more sensible. cheers, Aus

Hi all, In cleaning up a project due to some unexpected extra instructions etc needing to go in, I moved some MBs around to make things easier to understand. In using Operand Find and Replace, it all turned to crap. I have read another post on the forum that says that they have had trouble with this operation as well. An example is that I want to move MB3, a 'screen is displayed' link, to MB50. I bring up the Replace box, source MB3, target MB50 (which is empty), no sub or display restrictions, vector length left at 1, copy properties and clear source both ticked. Click apply and it all seems to have happened OK. I can then find no references to MB3 in the program using the Find facility, and everything seems to have moved OK to MB50. However, in running the program, even after an initialise, it seems that the PLC seems to have retained some aspects of the previous configuration. Although MB3 is now nowhere to be found in the program, I cannot turn it on or off manually whilst online, it is stuck on. It is still being referenced by something that is not visible to me, with the consequence that the program doesn't now run correctly. If I manually go through and do all the changes myself, everything works ok. I have also had similar things occasionally happen when I use copy and paste, where I use the same element layout but just change some numbers around. It seems that some of the pasted elements that need changing retain some sort of internal invisible connection to the source, which then creates issues. Going over every single element and OK'ing it then seems to cure the issue, which is defeating the point of the exercise a bit! Has anyone else had issues like this? I can get around it, but the facility to make it easy exists, yet doesn't seem to work properly. cheers, Aus

Another thought is that I occasionally have to go into Device Manager, and match the baud rate there to what is being used in Visilogic...normally 57600. This seems to vary between computer systems, all with Visilogic being run as Admin. The fact that you have 2 adapters in use might also be causing issues, with conflicts arising. I have had many occasions where a new device or different PLC programming system has added in, without asking, a different driver that completely wrecks previously perfect connections, even though DM reports everything as OK. If you look hard you will likely find all sorts of drivers in your system for the adapters. I have found this program invaluable at finding and deleting problem drivers: http://www.pro-it-education.de/software/deviceremover/ Edit March 18 2017: I have discovered this link doesn't work anymore. Can now be found here: http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/System-Miscellaneous/Device-Remover.shtml You can then start from scratch using known good, safe in the knowledge that nothing bad is possibly left to interfere with things. Try to ascertain if your adapters are genuine Prolific based before reinstalling anything. The imitations are notorious for doing exactly the sort of thing you describe....connections that work a little. It can be a real headache getting rid of them and that program is your friend. System restore doesn't always get things back correctly, either. You have to ensure that the bad ones are totally out of the system. Finally, what model PLC is it, as you might be able to use ethernet? If not, maybe you've got an older computer system with a real serial port, stored away and forgotten in the cupboard!? cheers, Aus

Hi again, I had to get rid of an attachment on another post to add one to a new post as I had reached my 0.5Mb limit. Could we please possibly look at changing the very low 0.5Mb restriction, which seems to apply across all of one's posts in the forum. Perhaps it could be changed to 1Mb per post? Surely that's not too much data storage given the active members in the forum. cheers, Aus

I have got it to work ok. In my first trials I tried using the RTC to ASCII conversion. However, there was an unsuccessful write with the transfer status keeping on throwing up a no. 8 error (correct...no. 8!) for some reason, so I eventually gave up and tried another path. After Joe's suggestion, I went back to the original idea using the parameters shown in the attached jpg...it is very wide to show the ladder, Sd write settings and also the results of 3 successful runs viewed via SD Card Explorer, all in the one screenshot. Sorry for the high compression but it is readable enough. MB11 is a combine of various things for the SD. I don't know why it is working now, I haven't done anything differently except that I think that I was originally using the dd/mm format instead of DD_MM_YY. Regardless...it works ok and is the result I want. Thanks for the help and perhaps it might be of use to others. cheers, Aus

Thanks Joe, will do, but I have played with the RTC to ASCII conversions and didn't have any luck. I will have another go using the example as my guide as it seems the way to go and I likely did something wrong. Don't know where the emoticon, instead of point . came from in my OP! Since then I have played some more and have an update found with different dates. It would appear that the original dates I was experimenting with all delivered the same name just by chance. In these cases I have stored SI32 into a DW, but going on memory of the previous attempts with the overwriting, I think the same result is likely using an MI. I can get it all working fine with 3 separate files with the following: Y_.UDT for 29/05/2015, (yeah...aussie date format!); __.UDT for 30/05 and J.UDT for 1/06. There is still something going on that I can't fathom in getting the seemingly simple task of changing SI32, which is the numbers I want in the order I want, into the new name for the next .UDT file. Everything is working fine, just the names are wrong and it looks like there might be some overlaps of names which I first encountered which might lead to overwriting at some stage. So I am there, but not quite. Can someone enlighten me as to how the RTC values are developed and moved around within the system, as I think this is the fundamental info I am missing. cheers, Aus

+1 to Joe and his driver link. I always get them from there for the same reasons. My first post was detailing what can happen with non-genuine stuff. If you need to go down the path of finding drivers that work, you probably have a non-genuine. It is well worth ditching it for the real thing to prevent major headaches later. cheers, Aus

Hi again all, V130. I am having trouble writing a different name for each consecutive save of a complete data table to the SD card. I want to do the write as a new file, not an append. I have a large logging data table that is written to every minute, 24/7. I am then running "Write Data Table to SD" once every 24 hours, so that I will end up with just over 2 months worth of individually named logs on the SD before it reaches the 64 limit, alleviating the current need for me to log on every day to upload the table direct. I can thus do a remote upload of all of them every 2 months, and then clear things out ready for the next lot. I transact the write ok, but I cannot get a new, separate file being written, it is always overwriting the old one. I can do an append but this is not what I want. I want to label each new udt save on the SD card with the date/month. I am storing SI32 into an MI. I select DT (1) as the SD folder and the MI as .udt file name. I suspect that the problem is either: a). the sometimes strange ways RTC info is derived/stored in PLCs, or . is related to the advice "Note that if the name comes from an MI, the function copies a vector 8 bytes long, or until it finds a 'null' character." Perhaps things are reaching a null character before any actual numbers come up, and so the write is being told to go to the same name (no name?) so it overwrites the existing. Given the varying nature of how the numbers in SI32 work for different dates, I am scratching my head a bit as to how to get this to work. No doubt the solution is really simple, but my brain is stuck in a "dumbo" loop which we all get from time to time, and emerge from smacking our head going stoopid, stoopid, stoopid! All suggestions gratefully received! cheers, Aus

As well as the above, I would ensure that your unit is working correctly on something else. I know that there can be major issues getting some usb converters to work correctly due to the PL2303 drivers being changed slightly to counter all the forgeries around. It is often a case of chasing around and finding the ones that will work by trial and error.....there are myriad differences and often it is very painful getting windows to constantly use them correctly and get rid of the duds. I always try and use genuine Prolific products, which are badge engineered into a multitude of names. This site is helpful and explains a lot: http://www.ifamilysoftware.com/news37.html cheers, Aus

Intrigued how you did this, Tozo. I cannot achieve this result no matter what I do. Or have you "made" this image meaning what you would like to see when you say "this would be nice"? cheers, Aus

Thanks Alexander, Can the creators please have a look at rectifying this issue...it can't be too hard. It is a bit pointless being able to detach it, then not being able to manipulate it's size to suit your desktop layout, or make it large for a big watch setup, when it keeps on reverting to only 7 lines. Cheers, Aus

Thanks Alexander, I can't do screen shots that show this easily at present as I only have my small screen device with me. However, if you click on View/Output Window it will hide/bring up the window in question. Once detached, no resize functions work at all, yet the mouse icons change appropriately. Hope this is enough info. If not, I can do screen shots in a few days. cheers, Aus

Hi all, 9.7.55 - 0 on Win 7 Hm Prem 32, admin run and installed. Needed more screen space to view the ladder, but also had to have the Output Window so I detached it. I can't resize it at all once it is detached. I can drag it around, but not resize it. Resize pointer marks come up, but can't do it. Bug? cheers, Aus

Thanks Saragani, Yes it solves the problem. I have never run Operator since encountering some long forgotten issue in the past. Seems to be working fine, though. But there is something definitely nice about Remote Access only giving you the small window to work with, rather than all the extra clutter of Operator. Perhaps something to think about for future releases? cheers, Aus

Hi all, RA 9.5.0. For many of my "programmer only" setting screens I use the small fonts 5. I can fit an awful lot of adjustments into these screens on a V130. They look like gobbledegook to others, but make sense to me. I often use Remote Access to alter these settings at sites, as I set my program/screens up to make it easier to use this method, rather than needing a complete run of VisiLogic going. This also has the innate advantage of easy onsite adjustments without a laptop. When using Remote Access on my puter, the window size is small enough that fonts 5 is hard to read, even with my proper specs on. I know, I know, gettin' old! If I zoom anything above 1x, the keys disappear. If you tell it to show keys at higher zoom levels, it reverts back to 1x zoom. And custom zoom doesn't seem to do much. Is there a trick to make it keep the keys visible at bigger zoom levels? Or is this a bug that you could easily fix to save my poor old eyeballs? It also happens using remote access within VisiLogic, too. Cheers, Aus.....(needing higher rated specs every day!)

Thanks Cant and Flex. I hear your opinions and take note. Although no expert, I have been programming many brands of PLCs on and off for 20 years. I use the subroutine method purely to make it easier to work on the many different aspects of the installs I do. If I didn't break things up some of the ladders would be very large indeed! I try to follow the descending method of Inputs, process/adjust, interpret, anything ultra important happened since I started?, outputs. With many offshoots within each area being run as necessary. If the now-defunct "20 year old but still good" system that I was working with can show what the power rail is actually doing over a slow serial connection, I can't see why something more modern shouldn't be able to do it as well. I agree, Flex, that it just seems to show what each state is. Another example of the old system's logical design is that my "fast" timer issue by being called twice doesn't happen in this older gear either. If you set a timer running, it just bangs away correctly no matter how many times it is referenced or looped. Don't get me wrong, I love Unitronics gear. I re-accomodate to the different systems, but it just takes time to settle back into driving the different vehicle! cheers, Aus

Thanks R. That seemed to do the trick. Also, a suggestion for the upgrade wizard. The need to only do it via the com port should be strongly highlighted in the very first window before you get anywhere near the actual process. I have a site visit to do because I didn't note this important warning early enough, tried to do it via the net. Clicked on proceed just as I fully absorbed the info...damn! My fault, but a slight window alteration would help. It didn't help that the entire procedure was initiated by me accessing the controller remotely to do a full download and being told that I had to do the required update. The natural thinking is that it can all be done by the link that has told you the update was needed, but this isn't the case. FYI, I also had trouble using version swapper on this build as it wouldn't load everything correctly during "Register". This seems to be cured, too, but might be totally unrelated as I have had the program in and out a few times since first trying. I might have been originally trying to use the swapper in 9.7.0, not the latest. cheers and thanks, Aus

Hi Ofir, eventually found it. The sub was also being called via a Choose "While Displaying" Subroutine in a Link & Jump. I had put it there initially and then changed my mind and used ladder work instead. Forgot to delete it via right click. I will keep in mind that such things cause timers to run this way. Haven't encountered it before, so learn something new every day. Thanks again, Cheers, Aus

Hi again Ofir, Can't seem to find anything. Attached a screen shot of the search results and the two nets involved. I must have a call hidden away somewhere that I haven't found yet. Looking....looking...looking! cheers, Aus

Thanks for the quick response, Ofir, checking it all out now.

Hi all, zip attached with little video in it of timer doing strange thing....it appears to be running twice as fast. (edit..vid removed for space) I have a few in the program doing the same thing....but not all. Different types doing it. Anyone got any ideas on what is going on here? Took a while for me to figure out why something was happening earlier than expected! Cheers, Aus

Hi Maakari, I do this sort of thing all the time. At the risk of going outside your original scope, I suggest that it will be far easier and more economical long term to change your blowers to systems based on EBM EC units, or similar units from other makers. Benefits are numerous with the main ones being far more efficient resulting in very quick payback; no belt maintenance issues; inbuilt variable speed simply controlled by 0-10v, 4-20ma, or bus; no electrical interference issues to deal with at all and will couple straight to your existing 3ph power with likely much lower CBs needed. You can even have them direct linked to sensors to achieve what you want without any plc input, just having the plc monitor it. eg CO2 sensor drives the motor directly so that as it rises, speed increases. Of course the plc can do this, but it involves more hardware and programming. Is better, but more complex. I understand that changing the blowers might be hard, but it will be well worth it. Quieter, smoother, heaps better all round...can't stress this enough. By the time you add in all the costs associated to put VFDs in correctly, and ongoing maintenance $s of what you already have, you will be a long way along the cost of changing. And as well, your motors may not handle a VFD anyway. On sensors, I recommend going with known brand names. Speaking from horrible experience, although the pricing is often many hundreds of percent more, you will avoid hassles you might get with lower priced "bargains". You can eventually get them to work correctly, but have spent ages achieving this when the big $ version just bangs straight in and works ok forever. Ebay is useful, but on something so important quality is also vital....the usual ebay dilemma...sometimes stuff there is great, sometimes not so good! Also, don't forget to have outside air intake adjustable via modulating damper. You have required minimums/maximums to maintain, along with keeping it pleasant anyway. I think you are going to find that it will end up more complex than you first thought, to make it great. To finish, I usually end up with the EC's using b/n 1/3 to 1/2 the power for the same airflow. On something running 24/7 these $s add up quickly. cheers, Aus