Siemens\TI Basic Module Manual #500-5035

Hi all,

I am in a bind. I have run into a situation where I need to know what I dealing with. If anyone has a manual, I would be appreciative.

David.

P.S. I know you all want more information to help with the problem. I do not have all that info from the customer. All I get is, "It's broke.", so I need a manual and some time in front of it to figure out what the problem is. I will post what I find so all can take note.

Hi David

For that vintage of TI equipment I don't think I've ever seen an electronic manual. However the later 505-series BASIC module (which is in itself now discontinued) had a broadly similar operating system and instruction set, and was really just a re-packaging of the 500-series module in to a 505-series physical format. You can get the manual for that from the Siemens web-site at http://www.sea.siemens.com/automat/product/plc/505/au505man.html

There was also a DOS-based terminal emulator called BTERM with pre-configured keys for various tasks. It still seems to be available http://www.sea.siemens.com/automat/product/plc/505/au505dl.html I suspect any decent Windows terminal emulator would allow you to communicate these days.

Good luck

Ken

Hey Ken,


Thanks for that excellent link.

David

Turns out the rack power supply started blowing fuses. They have increased the fusing to 'maintain' the power supply on. I have indicated to them that this needs to be addressed and repaired as necessary. The basic module's on board battery was also shot and lost its program. I was able to provide them with the proper tool to download the program and it works now. They are going to upgrade this now, so I have a project out of this.

David

David

It's always interesting to get feedback and "closure" on these things. I don't think we do it enough on this forum. Questions get asked, answers of various quality are given, and then we are often left wondering about the outcome.

Given the age of the equipment here, reliability of things like PSUs is not going to improve. Aging components will start to go out of spec, fuses will be under strain (as you've indicated) etc. TI themselves replaced this series of PLCs, and now Siemens have effectively discontinued the replacement. It may be worth trying to nudge your client in the direction of the 21st century.

Regards

Ken

That is the plan now. They were so happy with my help that they offered us a chance at bidding the upgrade. If we stick with Siemens, then an S5 is more than enough power. But they have a lot of AB on site, so they may prefer that in the end. We will see what avenue they would like to take.

David

Woah! Don't go down the S5 route at this stage! It's as dead as the TI kit. If they do want Siemens, then S7 is the current family.

Ken

I am new to Siemens so I did not realize S5 is dead. Then what S7 would be desirable. I think the 300 would be way overkill but as I said, I am new to Siemens.


David

It's just a little bit difficult to estimate an appropriate equivalent PLC when all you've said so far is that the client has a BASIC module

What other info do you have on the whole PLC installation: CPU type, I/O type and quantities, what's the BASIC module doing, what else is attached etc etc ... ?

Regards

Ken

From my understanding,

It has a 530T? Processor, The basic Module and a few I/O cards. I will not have specifics until next week. There is a Nematron Interface for setpoints and machine control. The basic module prints out a report of some type, but I have no specifics on that either. It is relatively a simple machine that pours material into moulds for casting paarts. I do not know how large it actually is as of yet.

David

The 530T could handle both digital and analogue I/O, but had no floating-point maths capability. I think it had about 24kBytes of ladder memory, plus some data memory. The ladder was completely unstructured or partitioned - just one big sheet of code from top to bottom. The BASIC module could be used for floating point maths as well as report generation - this was quite common in that type of installation.

You may be able to accommodate the same functionality in a smaller S7-200 using better programming techniques, even if the memory is smaller. However STEP7 software has a conversion utility which I think can take old 530 programs and convert them to S7-300-style source code. As with everything when it comes to software conversion, your mileage may vary. It won't be able to convert anything in the BASIC module - that's up to you I'm afraid.

Let us know more when you've found out more and we'll all try to help. (There's more than just me, really!)

Regards

Ken

I believe the 530T has the following specs:
User Ladder: 8 Kb
C's: 511
Varible memory: 4 Kb (v-memory)
Constant memory: 0
Special memory: 0
Timers/counters: 256
Drums: 30
Shift registers: 45
Tables: 45
One shots: 128
I/0: 1024

With the old 530's you would often run out of "c" memory, one method around this was to use unassigned I/O memory, in many old programs you will see X's or Y's being used as internal bits.


Your application sounds like a pretty small one and there might have been enough "C's" for the task. However, if the unused X's and Y's were used a internal bits, it might not auto-convert as readily.

Hey Mr Moore, I wondered when you'd show up!

"8kb ladder"? Now that got me thinking. And I couldn't let go until I got it clear. As far as I remember the full part numbers for 530s (530Cs and 530Ts) had a 4-digit suffix, the last two digits of which were the ladder memory in kWords.

There was definitely a 530C-1104, -1108 and -1212, and the only 530T I ever came across was a 530T-1212. So these would have had 4, 8, 12, and 12 kWords of memory respectively (8, 16, 24 and 24 kBytes). There may well have been smaller 530Ts but I'm sure (nearly) about the largest one.

Or have my old grey cells got completely frazzled over the years?

Regards

Ken

You're correct about the memory size being part of the part number, since this sounded like a very small application, I listed the specs. for the lowest one. The largest system had these specs:

User Ladder: 24 Kb
C's: 1023
Varible memory: 10 Kb (v-memory)
Constant memory: 0
Special memory: 0
Timers/counters: 400
Drums: 30
Shift registers: 75
Tables: 75
One shots: 400
I/0: 1024