VersaMax, Proficy ME EGD Config

I have a fairly simple system consisting of a VersaMax PLC, a 6" HMI panel, and a Fanuc robot. I am trying to configure these to communicate via EGD and having nothing but trouble. I have found the "Getting Started" manuals and the 1-800 help line to be of no value.

I have gotten the EGD installed but I can't get past the exchange setups.

I will be happy to provide any additional details you need in order to help me. What would be highly beneficial to me at this point, I believe, would be a tutorial written by anyone by GE/Fanuc or a backup file of a properly configured system that I could load and view as an example.

Thanks in advance,
Dave

I am going to "assume" all the equipment has ethernet capabilities and all network parameters are setup correctly. First off if you have a GE HMI, you do not need EGD for it's communication. Just set it up for the GE TCP/IP PLC communications driver and it should communicate well with the PLC.

I can't answer on the robot as I know nothing about them, maybe someone else can.

As for as EGD itself, EGD is made up of one or more "exchanges". An exchange consists of a Producer and a Consumer. Both must be configured properly.

Example: We want to transfer via EGD, 10 words of %R data, starting at %R0001, from PLC-A to PLC-B. We also want 10 words or %R data, starting at %R0020 transfered from PLC-B to PLC-A.

In the first part, PLC-A would be configured as a producer with the %R data being sent to the IP address of PLC-B. PLC-B must be configured as a consumer accepting the PLC-A data.

In the second part, PLC-B must be configured as the producer and PLC-A as the consumer.

Produced and consumed exchanges must match exactly. If PLC-A is configured to produce 10 words but PLC-B's consumer exchanged is configured to only accept 8 words, the exchange will fail.

This is an extremely simplified version of how EGD works. I'm not sure if this forum is the best place to try and explain as it can get quite complex. Different PLC's and devices handle its configuration differently. The Proficy Machine Edition Help file does a relatively decent job of explaining EGD and there are some other documents at support.gefanuc.com.

Hope this helps a little.

Thanks. I understand that matching exchanges for each transfer are necessary. What I don't understand, and where the provided documentation fails me, is what do do to get the exhcanges configured properly; particularly, I am completely lost in setting up the config table, as it requires a variable but the popup for adding a variable is empty.


Thanks for the input on the HMI, as well. I'll need to double check on that and I do know that it always produces an error related to the driver.

I'm going from memory as I don't have ME installed on my laptop anymore, but in the tables you need to specify the location of the data you wish to transfer, and there should be a default "status" bit that needs to be included as well. I believe the default is a %I address.

On the produced end you'll need to specify the data locations of the data you want to transfer to the remote plc. I believe there is an 8 bit minimum transfer, so if you specify %m00001 as the starting point %m1 - %m8 would be transmitted.

On the consumend end you'll have to specify were store that recieved information. So you could recive the %m1 - %m8 data, but store that in %m101 - %m108. Again a status bit should appear by default.

You should be able to add rows to the table to transfer different memory locations.

You may have to right click -> add new to get another line in your table, but memory is hazy on that.

Clear as mud? If you have troubles I can load ME on my computer at home and give you some screen shots, I'd be able to explain the details once I see the configuration screens again.

Thanks. When setting up the table, is there a specific type of bit that should be used for a certain exchange? For example, when the robot is sending it's outputs to the PLC, does the PLC accept them as inputs(%i)?

I've always set it up so I only send %M bits via EGD, never the actual %Q/%I bits, as I would designate a range of %R and %M bits as my EGD bits to keep things organized.

A subroutine contained the logic to move data into the %R and %M bits.

%Q bit always controlled an %M coil. Same was true for the inputs. Simple as:

     %Q           %M

 ----| | --------( )----- 

 

 

Well I thought I was gradually getting somewhere...The robot sends 10 bytes of inputs and 10 bytes of outputs, so I configured 10 bytes of produced data and 10 bytes of consumed data. I set up these 20 bytes as %Ms in the variables table, then I set up my exchanges, finally got it all validated with no erros... and then the PLC began refusing to communicate with the PC.

Ok, I've managed to get my hands on a working program and found the one factor (unmentioned in any documentation anywhere) that was the problem, so I now at least have working EGD between the robot and the PLC.


Now my HMI... someone loaded a program into it somewhere along the way and it needs to go. It always puts up a warning that there's something wrong with the TCP/IP driver. If I attempt to conect to the HMI in any way, it crashes Proficy. I tried flipping all the DIP switches and yanking the battery (to force a total hardware reset) but this did nothing. Any ideas?

What is the HMI? Is it a just a GE quickpanel that uses the Proficy View for programming? You should be able to set the IP address of the quickpanel to your network via the network settings in windows CE.

If you can't open the existing view project without problems, just make a dummy project and try downloading it to the quickpanel, give it a main screen and setup your ip configuration to talk properly to your plc.

Just a note, I've had issues with the same warning coming up on the quickpanel during a re-boot/power-up situation. I found that if you close the window, give it a minute or two the HMI usually would find the PLC. If a quickpanel can't communicate to the PLC question marks appear on your HMI screens indicating communication problems.

I'm also curious about the details of your EGD configuration. What was missed?