ti305 communication trouble

i am currently working on a program in a ti305 plc. I am using a laptop with windows xp and tisoft to program with. The problem is that the communication link seems to be really slow and every once in a while i will lose the connection. This is really frustrating and makes it hard to troubleshoot the problems i'm having. The cable i'm using is new out of the box so i don't think that is the problem, com 1 on my computer is set at 9600 for the baud rate. Does anyone have any idea why i can't keep the communication to this plc. Wrong windows operating system? Thanks for any replys Rodney

Rodney

The issue may be just the antiquity of Tisoft. This was very definitely written as a DOS application, and typically of DOS applications of the time, it probably writes comms data direct to the hardware device COM1.

Then along came Windows. To begin with Windows was just a fancy front-end to DOS, but gradually Microsoft began to introduce the idea of the HAL - harwdare abstraction layer. In effect this said that the operating system should control all access to hardware, and that applications should simply submit request or commands to the o/s. So things like Tisoft (whether for the 305 or other TI PLCs) will quite often have problems getting online. They think they're sending messages to the comms port, but either it's not getting the message, or if it is, it's replying to Windows, not to Tisoft.

I've seen it work on some PCs and not on others - it seems to be a very variable symptom depending on who knows what.

Sorry - no solution, just a vague explanation of why it doesn't work.

Ken

In my experience the old Ti-Soft software works ten times better with a desktop vs. a laptop. I have a laptop and a desktop with the same OS, the desktop has never had an issue, the laptop works 10% of the time at best. I think it has something to do with the power saving design of the Laptop.

ken moore
I think it has something to do with the power saving design of the Laptop.

I think you might be on to something here because where i am working i am relying on battery power only. Don't have access to plug my computer in. Maybe i'll try stringing out a couple of cords and plug it in. maybe that will help. Also i noticed that my communication cable is quite long (about 10 feet). Would it help if i had a shorter cable? Thanks Rodney

One possible solution could be to get the AD software, it is windows based and communicates very well.

I use TISoft v7.1 on my W2k laptop and it always works ok, but I connect to TI500 & TI505 PLC's.

I have a couple of Old TI-405's that I talk to with AD software.

Good Luck.

Edit: I ment TI-305 not 405, oops.

I have the same problem with an old SY/MAX software.
A vendor told me it was because my new CPU in my PC was too fast for the PLC.

Runmode has a web page with a program to slow down your PC so that you don't have this problem. I have downloaded it but have not had the chance to try it.

http://www.runmode.com/usefulstuff.htm

Go to the bottom of the page to download it.

Bill