PowerFlex 40 Network Problem

The polymer room in my solids facility flooded today. Unfortunately, the PLC/VFD control panel is inside the containment area. Luckily the VFDs are lower than the PLC and when the VFDs blew up the operators responded to the alarm and found the flooded room. A 3" schedule 80 PVC ball valve split in half, so it was quite the flood.

Installed new drives and set the parameters no problem and we all were standing around feeling proud of ourselves until we noticed the the Hertz were dead at the minimum VFD speed and would not speed up no matter the HMI set point.

I went online with the PLC and the program was calling for the drives to ramp up. After about 30-40 minutes it kind of dawned on me. New drives, new network card, I need to set the IP address and subnet. I'm old school and cut my teeth on 4-20 mA analog speed command and 4-20 mA speed feedback. Networking drives is brand new to me. Its compact logic to AB drives and the drives are right there in my RS Logix 5000 program but there is no communication of course.

I pulled up the manual and it said to download BOOTP server. When I launch BOOTP server, it opens correctly but there are no devices listed, and there are no MAC addresses listed. Do I need to set up my laptop to a specific IP address to be able to see the new drives? I tried to go through an unmanaged switch and also plug directly into the drive. Neither worked.

After wasting about 2 hours on it tonight I had to throw in the towel. I am hoping some of the VFD gurus on this site can point me in the right direction. Unfortunately, I do not have part numbers or model specs with me. All that stuff is at work.

Windows firewall is turned off. Do PowerFlex 40s come with a default IP address or do they require BOOTP server to assign it?

Do you need to use a cross over cable to connect directly to the drive?

You can use boot up utility to program the ip of your drive ; you should first fix the ip adress and the mask of your pc adapter
Ex: Ip of drive 192.100.100.1
Ip of pc 192.100.100.2
Mask: 255.255.255.0
And dont forget to disable boot up after setting your ip drive
For more info check the manual:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...ggcMAA&usg=AFQjCNGK_xp8ivuG2a_LpI1u1CaGQPqzRQ

Here is the process I would use to get coms up and running. I assume you have the network address of each drive.

1. Get a small dummy switch
2. Plug your laptop in and change the settings of the ethernet adapter to match the default 22-comm-e address. I honestly don't remember the default address but it is in the manual. I think it is a 172.x.x.x address.
3. Install Connected Components workbench if you don't have it. It is free but takes FOREVER.
4. Add the drive to an ethernet driver in RSLinx (I like this better than the Eth/IP driver.
5. Add the device to the CCWB project and connect
6. Now you can configure the VFD and the 22-comm-e. Once you change the address you will loose connection and have to change the address in RSLinx.

You can also connect with the AB cable kit for Powerflex drives, but I find it clunky and it takes forever.

Another quick note is that you can find each drive's IP address in the AOP for the Control Logix project, if you are using SLC you would have to look at the MSG instructions used to control the drive.

Hope this helps.

Specific Answers:

1. They come shipped with a default IP which is in the manual for your model of drive
2. I have not tried a crossover cable but there is no reason why it wouldn't work. I always just borrowed a dummy switch from somewhere for a bit.

Do you happen to have a "remote keypad" for the PowerFlex 40 ?

My recollection is that you can set up the IP address of a PowerFlex 40's 22-COMM-E module using the remote keypad, but not using the built-in keypad.

The 22-COMM-E manual in Chapter 3 should have a pretty good description of getting the BOOTP utility to set up the module.

A general recommendation: be sure to turn off WiFi on the laptop when you're working on the wired Ethernet. It's not an A-B specific issue but sometimes computers get confused when they're connected to multiple networks.

Ken Roach said:

Do you happen to have a "remote keypad" for the PowerFlex 40 ?

My recollection is that you can set up the IP address of a PowerFlex 40's 22-COMM-E module using the remote keypad, but not using the built-in keypad.

The 22-COMM-E manual in Chapter 3 should have a pretty good description of getting the BOOTP utility to set up the module.

A general recommendation: be sure to turn off WiFi on the laptop when you're working on the wired Ethernet. It's not an A-B specific issue but sometimes computers get confused when they're connected to multiple networks.

Click to expand...

Thank you everyone for their replies.

We do not have a remote keypad. 99% of the plant is Square D drives, so we dont have much Allan Bradley stuff.

The 22-COMM-E manual has excellent instruction for setting the IP address using BOOTP.

First step is launching BOOTP.

Second step is selecting device from a list of MACs.

And thats where I get stuck. There are no MACs listed. Thats why I was thinking it has to be a network issue preventing BOOTP from polling the drives.

I'm positive it is something very simple and will be a DUH! moment. I just havent found it yet. I plan on calling Tech Connect on Monday but the wait time for the drive department is like an hour then they transfer you to their network guys who tell you that it sounds like a problem for their drive division.

Ill probably download Connect Component Work Bench and play with that some over the weekend.

Don't have access right now, but, I believe you select new & enter the MAC address from the drive into BootP. The 22Comm-E should have a label on it with the MAC Address.
George

George Graziano said:

Don't have access right now, but, I believe you select new & enter the MAC address from the drive into BootP. The 22Comm-E should have a label on it with the MAC Address.
George

Click to expand...

You are correct, there is a MAC address on the 22-COMM-E card. I tried typing it in on BOOTP and it didnt work.

Check the firewall status on the notebook, is there an exception for the Bootp server? Or just disable it to get bootp working.
Also check the network settings in the Bootp software - that is where the subnet mask is set.

Saturn_Europa1 said:

Do you need to use a cross over cable to connect directly to the drive?

Click to expand...

Yes ideally you should be using a crossover cable if you are connecting directly. Use a standard patch cable when using a switch. Some computers have the ability to compensate and switch their transmit and receive automatically, but it is safer to use the right tool. Switches are almost always smart enough to do this also.

That brings up a couple more issues.

• Make sure nothing else could be communicating with the device. Whether you use a switch or connect directly, the network should consist of just those two devices. A switch is OK, but do not plug anything else into the switch.
• Make sure you have manually assigned an IP address to your PC.

It sounds like you are on the right track but one thing you will discover is that a device will send out BootP requests every so often. After the first few requests if it does not get a response it slows down the frequency of those requests. The longer it goes the less frequent those requests get. Sometimes cycling power is a good idea as it will get those requests coming again.

OG

This may or may not be relevant but which operating system are you using? I have tried using BootP to assign an IP multiple times with Windows 7 and have been unsuccessful. I switch over to a Windows XP virtual machine and it works the first try every time.

You can also assign an IP to a device if you know the MAC address using the following in command in Windows via the command line:

arp -sip_addressmac_address

I might be mistaken, but I think that just adds the IP/MAC info to the ARP table. It has no effect on the device itself.

I've used BootP with Win7 without issues. Windows 7 has a firewall that might have been affecting your previous attempts to use it.

OG

Operaghost said:

Yes ideally you should be using a crossover cable if you are connecting directly. Use a standard patch cable when using a switch. Some computers have the ability to compensate and switch their transmit and receive automatically, but it is safer to use the right tool. Switches are almost always smart enough to do this also.

That brings up a couple more issues.

• Make sure nothing else could be communicating with the device. Whether you use a switch or connect directly, the network should consist of just those two devices. A switch is OK, but do not plug anything else into the switch.
• Make sure you have manually assigned an IP address to your PC.

It sounds like you are on the right track but one thing you will discover is that a device will send out BootP requests every so often. After the first few requests if it does not get a response it slows down the frequency of those requests. The longer it goes the less frequent those requests get. Sometimes cycling power is a good idea as it will get those requests coming again.

OG

Click to expand...

That was the solution. I cycled power to the drive with BOOTP open on the laptop while I was connected to the drive with an unmanaged switch and it flooded the BOOTP server with its MAC address. Thank you for your help