EX90-DI8-RO8 Won't connect to PLC

[JohnnyChimpo]

Hello All!

We turned off our v570 to perform a firmware upgrade to 9.8.95. In doing so, we failed to turn off the power to the EX90-DI8-RO8 I/O module at the same time, and it appears to have lost connection, and further power cycling them both doesn't work. Is there a way to reconnect the EX90-DI8-RO8 module to the v570?

Thank you!

 

 

[Ausman]

What is showing on the 570? 

What are the status leds on the I/O showing? 

Go into Info mode and find whether SB8 is on or off. 

What connection cable is in use, and has the earth line been disrupted?

Do you have your old program copied/stored before Visilogic would have updated it for the new version?

Why are you updating?  Are you connected to the outside world via ethernet?

Please tell us the answers to all these requests.

[Flex727]

3 minutes ago, Ausman said:

Why are you updating?

And if I may further emphasize by directing you to the Top Pinned Post in this forum: 

 

[JohnnyChimpo]

14 minutes ago, Ausman said:

What is showing on the 570? 

The program, no errors or anything out of the ordinary on the v570

 

18 minutes ago, Ausman said:

What are the status leds on the I/O showing? 

The module isn't connect, so there are no I/O status lights. The only lights that are on are solid green "power", and a flashing "run", indicating no connection to PLC. 

18 minutes ago, Ausman said:

Go into Info mode and find whether SB8 is on or off. 

SB8 is off

18 minutes ago, Ausman said:

What connection cable is in use, and has the earth line been disrupted?

Connection cable is the grey Cat5 with rj45 connectors. Ground has not been disrupted. 

18 minutes ago, Ausman said:

Do you have your old program copied/stored before Visilogic would have updated it for the new version?

Not quite sure what you mean. I just did the "check firmware" in the visilogic software, and then proceeded with the update, which brought it up to 9.8.95.  

18 minutes ago, Ausman said:

Why are you updating?  Are you connected to the outside world via ethernet?

Updating the firmware to support a new ethernet card which was installed and works, but wouldn't work with the software version that was on it before the update. 

 

 

22 minutes ago, Flex727 said:

And if I may further emphasize by directing you to the Top Pinned Post in this forum: 

 

Yes, we were dragging our feet on upgrading, and are still going to wait to upgrade to the latest firmware version. Just bumped it up to 9.8.95. 

[Ausman]

54 minutes ago, JohnnyChimpo said:

support a new ethernet card

So I'm guessing the answer to "are you connected to the outside world" is a yes?  Unless the ethernet is simply connecting to other things that are not.  That is the reason for the "don't update" topic.  If you aren't connected to the outside world, don't update to the latest security version.  "dragging our feet" is not a problem if you're not connected to the net.

54 minutes ago, JohnnyChimpo said:

Not quite sure what you mean.

But in using Visilogic 9.8.95 to do the upgrade, you had opened the version of your program you already had in the plc, but was used by the previous version of Visilogic?  Opening this *.vlp file in the later version of Visilogic may "update" the actual vlp in a way that makes it hard to go backwards.  (later edit..supposedly an automatic backup is done during this update...if you don't have the original any more, make a copy of the backup file immediately)

Is the ethernet card now showing in Info Mode?

And lastly...the usual "ohh poop" moment   ..was anything actually physically moved?  I'm guessing in replacing the card this has happened.  It's possible the ethernet and I/O cabling has been put into the wrong port.  They both look the same.  It's also possible that you have upset internal connections via bridging pins.  Check the IO/ethernet port idea first, then pop the covers again and check no connection pins are bent over etc.

As to the new card needing different firmware, I don't know on that one.  Someone else's turn....

 

[Flex727]

1 hour ago, JohnnyChimpo said:

Updating the firmware to support a new ethernet card which was installed and works, but wouldn't work with the software version that was on it before the update. 

Unless this is VERY old, I am unaware of updates required for a new Ethernet card. Can you tell us what was the previous version of VisiLogic and what were the model numbers of the previous and new Ethernet cards?

1 hour ago, JohnnyChimpo said:

Connection cable is the grey Cat5 with rj45 connectors.

Be aware that is NOT a Cat 5 Ethernet cable, even though it has the same RJ45 connectors. Double check that you don't have the Ethernet and Expansion cables swapped and that you have the correct end of the Expansion cable in the PLC and the correct end in the EX module. The Expansion cable goes in the bottom of the V570 while the Ethernet cable goes into Port 3 on the left side.

[JohnnyChimpo]

14 hours ago, Ausman said:

So I'm guessing the answer to "are you connected to the outside world" is a yes?  Unless the ethernet is simply connecting to other things that are not.  That is the reason for the "don't update" topic.  If you aren't connected to the outside world, don't update to the latest security version.  "dragging our feet" is not a problem if you're not connected to the net.

But in using Visilogic 9.8.95 to do the upgrade, you had opened the version of your program you already had in the plc, but was used by the previous version of Visilogic?  Opening this *.vlp file in the later version of Visilogic may "update" the actual vlp in a way that makes it hard to go backwards.  (later edit..supposedly an automatic backup is done during this update...if you don't have the original any more, make a copy of the backup file immediately)

Interesting. Yes we basically (as far as I know), just continued to do updates/downloads with 95 version, but just downloaded to the older controller firmware without updating. We have long since moved on from whatever firmware version was on the controller, so definitely not going backwards. I'm not sure we have the option to make a backup unfortunately. 

14 hours ago, Ausman said:

Is the ethernet card now showing in Info Mode?

Yup, ethernet card is all good, connecting fine, etc. It's just the I/O card now.

14 hours ago, Ausman said:

And lastly...the usual "ohh poop" moment   ..was anything actually physically moved?  I'm guessing in replacing the card this has happened.  It's possible the ethernet and I/O cabling has been put into the wrong port.  They both look the same.  It's also possible that you have upset internal connections via bridging pins.  Check the IO/ethernet port idea first, then pop the covers again and check no connection pins are bent over etc.

I mean yea, back of the case was obviously removed to access the internals, and the ethernet card was replaced. I'm certain I didn't disconnect the I/O RJ45 cable in the process, so I don't believe it to be hardware issue on the plug side, bent pins, bent housing, etc. 

 

13 hours ago, Flex727 said:

Unless this is VERY old, I am unaware of updates required for a new Ethernet card. Can you tell us what was the previous version of VisiLogic and what were the model numbers of the previous and new Ethernet cards?

It says right in the ethernet card documentation that minimum software required is 9.0.0

13 hours ago, Flex727 said:

Be aware that is NOT a Cat 5 Ethernet cable, even though it has the same RJ45 connectors. Double check that you don't have the Ethernet and Expansion cables swapped and that you have the correct end of the Expansion cable in the PLC and the correct end in the EX module. The Expansion cable goes in the bottom of the V570 while the Ethernet cable goes into Port 3 on the left side.

Not swapped. The ethernet cable goes up into the main switch, etc. I/O cable is like a foot long, and was never touched. 

 

I did just recieve this message from Unitronics:

"You should be able to power down both units, then plug in the ex90, then power then back up and it should detect it. However the version of visilogic you are using is known to contain many bugs and was only available for a short time. If possible we recommend updating to at least 9.8.96 to fix the bugs present in 9.8.95 as this may resolve the issue."

 

Long story short, this morning we are ripping out that I/O card, and replacing it with a snap-in expansion behind the plc. Sucks, I wanted to try and solve this one, but oh well. I'm honestly shocked nobody has encountered this problem before (or at least not posted about it on the internet). 

Thank you guys for all the help on this one! Definitely a weird one.