Ausman

Many things have been covered here. You need to go to the basics and start again with just the network ladderwork, which you do seem to be pursuing. That said, has the 130 been connected to other things? It is possible that the socket's pins have been damaged. Check carefully that all pins are properly in line and same height. Also try another cable. And also reseat the adapter, ensuring it is done carefully and properly. If all that still fails, get another card to try.....even if you are an electronics whiz don't go trying to fix the unit.....Unitronics would much rather have it back for research if it is indeed faulty. cheers, Aus

Perhaps....depends on whether it was "burned". Does "not communicating with this particular one" mean NO comms at all, or simply it can't read the program which likely means you're in trouble. But if you have no comms to start with, the user program may have initiated different comms parameters. Go into info mode and find what the comms parameters are set at, match them on your PC, and try again. cheers, Aus

HI Sergio, perhaps this topic might help you out. Have a good read through it all. cheers, Aus

Those darn input settings rearing their ugly heads again! ? ? cheers and well done, Aus

I agree that ease and usability of printing is a must. However, for a variety of reasons anything plc I want to print, I always send it out initially as a pdf, which I think is what Saragini is getting at to solve the issue. Sometimes I forget to specify something in a multitude of options and end up with an entire program....but as a pdf it doesn't matter! The pdf method is particularly true if I am copying structure but not details to another program, instead of using other sometimes more problematic methods. I simply have the pdf open on one screen and my program on another. As well, if you actually need to end up with a piece of paper, you can easily manipulate size and just print only the specific bit you need far more easily with the basis being a pdf. cheers, Aus

I haven't looked at your program, but the error message says it all for me. Please look at the help files, use Index to find Input, then look at Positive Transition Contact where you will find info about the total number allowed (255) and a whole host of relevant information. Likely the main relevance is in the section about "Decreasing the number......" Also, and probably the main culprit, your screenshots show 2 I/O actions in the one ladder rung, which might also be the issue. Separate things out. There is no $ charge for the number of ladder rungs.....use a new rung for each thing you are doing. I would also initially do a full download of an empty program and a full reset and clear of the plc. cheers, Aus

Just another comment on this. I work with gas powered air furnaces a lot, but have never read anything from a flow meter as such, hence me not knowing the 8v stuff. But all the furnaces I work with have modulating valves to vary the outputs. It is a fairly easy thing to get reasonably accurate gas consumption by doing maths on where the modulation is set at. If the pressures are correct and also more importantly to some degree, stable, (and they should be!) then this method is fairly accurate. Not likely as accurate as the meter, but close enough for "pretty visuals" if that is what is wanted. I use a combination of both the input and output the actuator is doing, which tends to allow for differences as the gear trains take up the slack. (If the output pot is direct mounted to the shaft (rarely) then just use the output as it is the true position.) To set the rate you run just that device and observe the mains meter over different settings. Due to valve mechanical structures it is rarely linear, I use a series of steps picked up by compares on the modulation level. Associated with this sort of situation is that I often work linearisations from other linearisations....it is a great way to get a sort of automatic compensation, adjustment, or fuzzy logic. The only difference might be that edit...just reread your info that the Visions will control each boiler.... in your case the modulation is being done by the boilers themselves which might mean a bit of fiddling to get the modulation mA or more generally 0-10V amounts, whereas in mine the plc does all the level control which makes it easy. If it is too hard to get the input, most systems I've seen don't actually use the output from the actuator, so just work with that. cheers, Aus

And further to Cam's correct advice, if you only have minimal information on the structure, but have the method of proprietary control available, you can likely insert a port monitor system on your PC which will be your best friend, to help decipher things further before transferring deduced results to the plc. cheers, Aus

Had this come up yesterday on one system, which totally clarifies why I hate W10 and M$oft's arrogance so much! cheers, Aus

Hi Daniel, you have downloaded the incorrect program. Unilogic is for a totally different species of plc from Unitronics. What you are wanting is Visilogic, where you will find lots of information on how to use the 350 within the Help files and examples. You can get the latest (non-beta) version here: https://unitronicsplc.com/Download/SoftwareVersions/Visilogic/VisiLogic_9_8_65.exe. To be sure of correct installation, run the .exe as administrator by using right click. (FYI somewhere in the last few releases I think the need to manually run as admin has been eliminated, but I'm not sure what one hence me mentioning it, and it won't hurt anything to trigger it manually anyway. Along the same lines you have to find the installed .exe and set it to run as admin as well, but again, in theory the install now does this itself.) cheers, Aus

Thanks Joe, having never worked with such devices I didn't know this. I stay away from things that go bang. cheers, Aus

OK, I've had a look at all I can find, and I think I must have misread M-Bus as Modbus in skimming things. Apologies. However, it also shows M-Bus as only fitted to the QAe versions, so my read is that you already have just the QA version so you might have an issue. If you have the e types, you could use a gateway like the ones from Anybus (or similar) and this takes care of getting multiple reads from all your QAs via M-Bus, and then giving that info to the plc via Modbus. However, further thinking (see how my brain has been ticking over on this in the background without me knowing? .....thanks a lot!!) has me wondering how you are going to get accurate readings for your eventual linking into the BAS. A variation up to 2 Hz is not going to give you much inherent accuracy if you are reading fairly often. If you use the modbus info from the M-Bus gateway, I think it will be simply giving you a number it is currently up to at the time of interrogation. Even 1 minute b/n calcs might be an issue, especially when going fairly slowly, and might lead to wildly differing quantity displays on each read which will likely not be the desired result! In some ways I think that you are still going to be best off doing an actual read of the count using the plc. Have a look at this post where I showed how to get fairly good accuracy on something fairly low Hz....very similar to your situation but would need some variation on the concept. Combine the plc read and this concept and it might be the best method. cheers, Aus

I saw it somewhere in my document skimming...it may have been in the Honeywell stuff. I'll have another squiz when I can and let you know. Not at the moment. cheers, Aus

I think you'll have to be careful that you constantly have each plc assigned the correct address, which is best done via the program. Because in your case it sounds like the program is being changed all the time ("students") which might be a spanner in the works. You would have to enforce that the same startup address ladderwork is used in every program being developed to ensure things stay correct across the network, with each plc therefore constantly having the same address. Especially so since you mention: "turn on the panel" which means it will be going back to defaults unless the program sets the address. cheers, Aus

If you don't have a crossover cable, you can always just put an ethernet switch in b/n the PC and the PLC, which then lets you use normal cables. cheers, Aus

It is great that it is working fine. But you need to understand that UniCan is a totally different thing to everything you mention. It is well worth your time having a good look at how it works, to consider possibly using it in the future. cheers, Aus

Yes, use a physical output(s) to trigger whatever sound you want using an external source. This is, of course, if the delay hasn't been fixed.....I don't know. cheers, Aus

I think you might have trouble achieving your aims sticking with Mbus. Please look at this screenshot of a page from the Unican comms manual. Correctly done it is very fast, noise immune, isolated and can go a fair distance as well. cheers, Aus

Isakovic's suggestion is correct and the best for your current hardware, but you are still working within Modbus limitations. if you really need to get things moving even faster than this, you could put in some Canbus modules and use Unican b/n the two. Much faster and in many ways much easier to do. cheers, Aus.

So was the database still present after loading the blank project? Or was it only present after reloading your 10x100 project again? So it looks like some functions relating to database work, but not all? cheers, Aus

Don't forget that you can use Excel for these DB numbers. That might make checking 1024 numbers very easy if you just do a sequential filldown. It would be nice/interesting to get an "official" comment about this from the creators. cheers, Aus

2 useful topics on this come up in an index search in U90Ladder help for database. Keep in mind that however you "implement" a DB, if your user "fine tunes" their system by modifying those values in the plc, they are not permanently saved. If you have a battery fail, you're in trouble. Try and implement a regular periodic read and storage of all the values involved, or periodically update all the startup values to match what is current, or give them a notebook to write things in! cheers, Aus

I don't work with Jazz often enough to know the answers. But....if the sample code worked ok for you on your Jazz trial, then stick with the concept offered and do your variations. If it works, it works. Or....can't you just use the MIs method? I often think using a database is actually far more complex than simply referring to a single MI, or a vector of them. It all depends how complex things are. cheers, Aus

+1 to all Flex says, but also do a full Initialize and Reset of the plc. Connection/Communication & OS/2nd tab, bottom right. cheers, Aus

If the delay hasn't been addressed as yet, maybe an external noise source that is run by the plc? Recognises a keypad entry and initiates an output of X milliseconds? cheers, Aus