Help needed. Getting Citect to talk to S5

Hi

As some of you know I've been recently trying to set Citect up to talk to an S7 PLC without ANY success. I've tried an CP343-1 ethernet card into an ethernet switch into the PC but to no avail...

Anyway.. I've managed to get hold of a S5-100U PLC. When the job gets installed it will be talking to S5-115U PLC's so this is a better test subject PLC.

I have just tried to set up comms and I can't get the thing to talk. Here's what I did...

I created a Tag that was of type INT and read address D10:0 (which I believe is DB10 Data Word 0)

I put this tag on a test page.

I set up an I/O Device that was using AS511 protocol under the folder for the S5-100U PLC. From COM 1 on my PC.

I then connected the PC to the S5 PLC via my programming lead as this has a RS232 - TTY converter built in.

All I get was a COM error...

Has anyone any ideas how to set up the comms for the S5, or what I'm doing wrong.

Anything you can do to help would be very appreciated.

Cheers

JT

Johnny, I haven't set one up myself but if you get your hands on the citect knowledge base they have a very extensive and helpfull library that can give you the answer from other peoples experience.

Steve D

Steve


Thanks for that. I have been trying to get access to their (citect) website for a few weeks now. I filled in the form and got sent an email saying that I'd get a username/password soon. That was two weeks ago and I've been chasing it ever since...

I've just sent another email though and will phone again tomorrow...

Cheers

John

Right, here's the problem in more details...

I read the help file for talking to an S5-100U PLC and it says that you can talk from your serial port via a TTY converter straight into the programming port of the PLC.

My programming lead that I use to talk to S5 is a RS232 - TTY converter, so I thought that I should be able to talk from the PC via that lead to the PLC.

Here's the settings I've got in my project:

I/O Server (just one of these.. do you need more than one?)

I/O Device:
Name= S5_PLC
Address = blank
Protocol = SIDIRECT
Port Name = PORT5_BOARD1

Boards:
Board Name = BOARD1
Board Type = COMX
Address = 0
I/O Port = blank
Interrupt = blank
Special Opt = blank

Port
Port Name = PORT5_BOARD1
Board Name = BOARD1
Baud Rate = 9600
Stop Bits = 1
Port Number = 5 (this is the correct port on a 8-port hub. The leds tx/rx do flash next to where the cable is plugged in)
Data Bits = 8
Parity = Even Parity
Special Opt = blank

Tags
Name = S5TESTTAG
Type = INT
Address = D010:000

Name = S5TESTTAG2
Type = DIGITAL
Address = D046:001.0

I have a test page set up containing these two tags... as far as I understand they correspond to DB10.DBW0 and DB46.DBW1.0 in the PLC. Both of these address exist in the PLC. The project compiles without any problems. When I go to my test page I get "PLC Server request timeout from I/O Server" error....

Can you see anything wrong with any of these settings?
Have you got an old project somewhere that talked to an S5 PLC that I could look at?
Do you know anyone who has used Citect to talk to an S5 PLC before?
Would there be relevant info in the Citect Knowledgebase (I currently don't have access to the knowledgebase)?

Any help you can give would be most appreciated.



Cheers

JT

Right.. I've got the thing talking with the help of Tom Sabitzer from Citect.

Basically, the com port needs to be 9600 baud, 1 stop bit, even parity, 8 bits.

The problem I was having was that yesterday I'd turned off my PLC in order to see if I could generate a different comms error (just to see whether it was communicating at all) and I must have lost the program in my PLC. So... my program was trying to read DB10 or DB46 and there wasn't a DB10 or DB46 DOH!!

The battery must be knacked in the PLC...

Anyways.. its sorted for now and I'm on to the next bit of the project. Thought I'd post back in case anyone else has the same problems in the future...

JT