Ausman

Edit....the morning after writing this. Despite noting that your motor has the 11 tooth chopper, I immediately jumped to my type of system where the chopper is on the final driven shaft/tower. On waking this morning my brain immediately told me of this error. So I've left this here, and if you can mount such a thing on the tower it would be useful. Dan below is also writing along the same lines. If your ON or OFF time of the sensor is long enough, you can get away with using a virtual position by stopping your motor at the middle of the longest transition. Whichever one is the longest time period....ON or OFF. This way you will keep your count. But.....as Kratmel has already said, you also need an input that gives you a home point, but in my cases it is always a mid-point. This can even be a simple microswitch, which you position so that your normal rotations trigger the switch during use, rather than deliberately running the antenna fully one way to home it. So for CW you rotate to your desired point and stop the motor, with the rotation sensor not changing state, ie no further rotation possible to "jiggle" the sense. CCW you do it all again but backwards. The main thing is aiming to stop the sense in the very MIDDLE of the arc it is on or off the longest. To do this you might have to add in a little timer to delay the stop slightly so that the exact middle is reached. This will need a little trial and error on the timer to find the inertia of the entire drive system. If your pulses are very short for both on and off this likely won't work, but it sounds like they will be long enough. I have a few installs of my "toys" that use such a system, and invariably once it is set up correctly, I log readings and find that the mid-check is pretty much not needed after 1000 or so movements over 20 hours. But being a midpoint is a good way to do things. This of course also means that the thing that the contactless switch is reading has to be completely uniform. Depending on the job, I would generate a chopper disc on my CAD that was then laser cut. pic below..and the square was an enclosure on the end of a hollow shaft that then held the disc very accurately. The sensor actually rotates around the shaft in my cases, the shafts are supports that hang from moving trolleys. But the movement is the same as yours... slow rotation speed. The KISS principle is the same the world over, complex control is sometimes not needed. Other times, very annoyingly, it IS! cheers, Aus

If you swap your inputs around what happens? ie A0 and A1 swapped. cheers, Aus

When I first starting using modbus, which was not THAT long ago and I needed to finally jump right in, I found there was a lot to get your head around. One of the best things I did was get a simple, cheap I/O device that I played with for some time on the PC system, learnt a whole lot in doing this, and then gradually shifted the knowledge into the more complex programs I was being asked to do. I used Modbus Poll at the time, but there are plenty of other PC programs out there doing similar stuff. And admittedly I was using Visilogic which I was very familiar with, anyway. The standout thing was that the learning curve was mostly enjoyable, it was very pleasing to spend a few (??) hours finding methods of communication that worked or failed, learn the quirks of the device and work out how to get around issues. Then eventually see the magic reactions or inputs arrive correctly from various register types at/from the PLC using a host of trial methods, whilst deciding on the best one. I think it would be well worth your time to perhaps spend a little money and do such a thing. These days you are looking at really cheap prices, as well. Make notes along the way and keep them. cheers, Aus

The "g" in png was not being automatically included in clicking the links. I've now edited the originals so that they work ok.

Any time you are working with a new device, always do an initial trial of comms using your PC as the basis, with one of the freely available modbus comms programs. It is far easier to find what works correctly doing it this way, and then you can transfer the known results into your plc work.

As well as Gabriel's point, a piece of info in Help that I suggest is a MUST read is "Program Sequencing: Modules, Subroutines, Labels & Jumps" paying particular attention to the Runs HMI Program info at the bottom.

On top of what Flex has found In the picture of the plc's info mode, the IP is clearly visible as 192.168.1.30, yet you have an init setting it to .20, and you say it is .1 !! As well, perhaps you need to try using your gateway as DNS instead of OpenDNS. Before doing anything more along Flex's suggestions and other thoughts, download a blank program and do an Init & Reset. Then make a small program that is ONLY the ethernet connection ladderwork, iron out your bugs and then go further. cheers, Aus

It's been a while since I did this, but I think that depending on what was needing updating, with this being a 130 you might have needed to only be using serial comms. How were you connected doing the update? If you weren't using serial, please try that. If using a usb to 232 adapter please ensure it uses a prolific chip.

Vinicios, if you have the functions in a subroutine, ensure that you are calling the sub. Utils/Call/Call Subroutine The sub does NOT run if you don't call it. As well, there are other potential issues. Read this: https://forum.unitronics.com/topic/8850-important-sub-routine-advice-updated/ cheers, Aus

+1 to Joe's point. Lots of info on this forum re serial converter issues. I could not find anything about the chip in your unit. But I did find this: Note: Computer should have Administrator access to avoid potential installation issues when first installing drivers. When attempting to use most recent driver with an existing USA-19HS unit, it is critical that the old drivers be uninstalled from the computer before downloading and installing the newer driver. Even though the old driver no longer works, the Device Manager will still attempt to use it. This is very relevant and covered here, as serial drivers can attach to a system like toffee to a blanket: https://forum.unitronics.com/topic/4516-usb-connection-issues/?do=findComment&comment=16593 However, before jumping completely off the cliff, I have had instances where comms settings don't convey properly from a program to the device, so match your speeds and other settings in Device Manager, to your connection settings in Visi. In theory 57600 is your best starting point, but shift right back to 9600 if needed. cheers, Aus

Have you checked the security settings of the relevant folders to ensure you still have full rights? This is not the same as installing as admin, that's why Joe has mentioned it. See here, and ensure all equivalent steps are done, given you are working with Remote Op instead of Visi. The error messages do sound like it hasn't been installed as admin. https://forum.unitronics.com/topic/7917-visilogic-doesnt-work-properly-after-installation-what-install-as-administrator-really-means/

Hi Flex, after lots of consideration because it's such a broad "overview" type question, I felt this was the best forum area to put it up. Feel free to move it! And as an aside, in trialling a few more programs on my main PC, I've once again encountered the annoying habit of many serial related programs totally over-writing existing serial drivers, even including the one used for the native serial port, without any sort of permission asked etc. I couldn't understand why some new cables I'd made weren't working on Com1. After meter checking again and finding them seemingly perfect, I was thinking that perhaps the pre-moulded plug I was using at one end was missing/had something internally that wasn't obvious with just a continuity check. But I finally tried a known good pre-existing one and up popped the same "comm error". Grrrrr. 😠 Uninstalled the offenders and the drivers windoze had stored deeply away, and I was eventually back in business. But it was very annoying. cheers, Aus

Hi all, over the years I've had varying success with different Virtual Serial to IP programs. Some of the supposedly "modern" ones don't want to play properly, and the old faithful still seems to be the most reliable for me, which is USR's VCOM 3.4.1.0. Wondering what other forum members have as their favourite/one that works reliably? cheers, Aus

I've always been a high flyer at my work. The first day of my new job at the bike factory, they made me the spokesperson. Boom boom. I know, I know, some days they're good, some days not. 🤪

vlader, you need to describe your situation a little clearer, but I'll assume some things.... Are you actually online, in that you can see the MB's state shown in the online area under the "glasses"? The default colour for this is blue, and the column is empty if you're not correctly online. If you are online ok, are you saying that on clicking the MB you want to change, the popup window to do so doesn't appear? If this is the case, it is possible that you may be experiencing the issue where if you worked with 2 or more monitors before and are now only using one monitor, the popup wants to be on a different monitor. This has been discussed a few times, look at both of these: https://forum.unitronics.com/topic/2541-visilogic-on-notebooks-with-2-displays/ https://forum.unitronics.com/topic/5827-multi-monitor-issue/ cheers, Aus

My pet mouse Elvis died last night. He was caught in a trap. 🐭

I haven't tried it with any Vision equipment, but Google does have an innate method for less secure devices to communicate with gmail. It's not well known, but the method is that the google system generates a specific password just for that device, ie it isn't the normal login for the account in use. I had some printers that were being blocked and they are still working fine to this day. Stupidly I did not write up the procedure...kicking myself....but it was fairly easy to step through the process once I had "learned" things. The learning was definitely a bit of trial and error! I recall that the biggest hurdle was having to use the device concurrently with being logged in to the account via PC etc...I think that fairly quick timeouts applied for entering the info. I think that my starting point was here: https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/185833#zippy= and the reference to an "app" is initially confusing, as it isn't an app as such. Again, I don't know whether it works with Vision or not, as I haven't needed it, and at present don't have time to trial things. If someone else has success, please write it up. cheers, Aus

I also suggest that Revo uninstaller is useful. https://www.revouninstaller.com/start-freeware-download/ And remember that if all else fails, you may have a restore point that will possibly get you back to 9.8.31. I strongly suggest you do a full partition/drive backup before trying. cheers, Aus

Thanks Saragani, I suspected as much but thought it worth an ask. 🙂

I've been intrigued by this issue, and glad it's resolved. But as someone who never uses colour images, I need to ask the question.... In Vision, the single pixel method for defining transparency is used. For simplicity of using and applying on every image a user might use, can this be done in Unilogic? Or does the method already exist and has been forgotten in this case? cheers, Aus

So I went to my Doctor recently for my routine 1/4 year checkup. She did the usual tests and finally asked me to lie on my side with pants down and knees tucked up. This last test was taking a while so I chatted with, "Doc, how's it all going? Will I live a long and great life?" "I doubt it," she said, waving her ringed fingers around whilst her ear-rings jangled. "Mercury is in Uranus". "I don't go for that astrology nonsense," I said back. "Neither do I", she explained, "My thermometer's just snapped".

Dave, a question that might be relevant here is what image programs do you have on your computer? Perhaps they are basically changing the way the PC handles any .png file....changing the bit format etc. which is then flowing on into your usage issues. cheers, Aus

That's part of the headache I once created for myself using TEs . I have mentioned elsewhere on the forum that I always try to use the same type of action throughout a program, and mostly it is close on condition met. So the actions needed for the correct TE operation were opposite to what I was doing elsewhere, and it tied things up in knots with incorrect operations/logic issues. I know it was all fundamentally of my own doing and methods...but it influenced my thinking and approach. It is a personal type thing. The timing maps clearly show how to use them, but I still hate the way the things have to implemented using a coil and then boolean. When I first started using Vision ages ago this was a "what?" moment, as I had been spoiled with ease of use up to then....like this: I----[whatever type of input you want ]-----[00125 (timer type) Txxx]---------(whatever type of output you want)---I with 125 being 1.25s. All done in that one element.

And I've just noticed that the type in your case is a TE. I personally find this the worst offender for ease of use, and operation as expected. That aside, this is perhaps one of the reasons why I always try to do an Init and Reset on any program change, even minor. I have had instances where some details seem to be retained from a previous project making odd things occur, and an I & R fixes the issue. .......even though it's not meant to........😉

I can only do a quick response, one thing to remember is that timers can do odd things if their triggering is referred to more than once. FWIW, I have always disliked Vision's timer arrangements, in that they make some things complex and harder to use. Yes, you can arrange them to do lots of timings, but they pale when compared to a favourite other brand that has far more innate timer methods available, that do everything needed, and do it by essentially using only one ladder element. That is why in many Vision "timer" scenarios, I use count based systems instead, which I find are much better anyway for more complex operations. Counters are a forgotten method these days, it seems. Timers definitely have their place, Vision works them ok, but the methodology can be a complete pain. And a PS...by "Counters", I mostly mean roll my own versions. I await the rest of the forum giving me a hard time! 🙃