CompactLogix L35E and Emerson Ovation

I am a bit new to Allen-Bradley PLC's, and need to draw upon the experts of this forum.

I have a CompactLogix L35E which will be controlling four pumps. The overall start/stop signal will be coming from an Emerson Ovation DCS. Everything I have read and been told, Ovation integrates with AB well. I have two digital output cards, one digital input and one analog input card connected with the L35E. Besides basic start/stop commands I have a running indicatin from each pump, and also need to send back a flow and sump level.

I can talk to and program the L35E with its ethernet port all day long. What I can't figure out is how to make it so that the Ovation can send its signals to the L35E and vice versa. I have looked at twenty million manuals from Rockwell which all seem to be geared towards the L35E controlling other items, but nothing on how to control the L35E from another device. I have seen things on using messaging, tag mapping, and adding another ethernet port module to the LocalENB in RSLogix 5000.

After spending two weeks off and on, I am at the end if my rope. It doesn't help that I have a mini version RSLogix 5000 and can't even open up their sample projects to reverse engineer things. ARGH!

The Emerson guy tells me he just needs the address of the L35E(check), and the individual address of the tags(umm I don't see any addresses other than the hardware module locations). He said the address tags were something like FS:######?

I have read rockwell's enet-um001 document as well as many others, and maybe I am just too dense to understand it.

Let the schooling begin!

I am interested in this issue; I have a major customer asking me similar questions.

ControlLogix-family controllers use 40-character tagnames. If Ovation is able to communicate with native Logix tags, you should have to provide the Tag Name (like "FlowChannel_2_GPM") and the Data Type (BOOL, INT, DINT, REAL, STRING, etc).

ControlLogix can also emulate PLC-5/SLC-500 style controller data file addressing, where data elements are designated by a letter and an element number, like Floating Point (F8:xx), Integer (N10:xx), Bit (B3:xx/yy).

In RSLogix 5000, you can correlate Array Tags with PLC/SLC Data Files. Click Logic -> Map PLC/SLC Addressing and use that table to enter Array Tags and File Number equivalents.

When an incoming data request has a PLC/SLC address instead of a Logix Tag Name, the controller pulls the data for that Data File/Data Element from the corresponding Array Tag element.

Send me a PM with your e-mail; I'd like to see those example programs from Emerson.

You dont have to worry about how the start and stop commands arrive at your Compactlogix 35E PLC. Like the Emerson guy said, he will take care of that part.

What you have to do is to write some program, including defining tags in your PLC for the start and stop signals.
Those tags will be what the Emerson guy must have information about.
Here is a manual about defining tags in ControlLogix/CompactLogix:
http://literature.rockwellautomation.com/idc/groups/literature/documents/pm/1756-pm004_-en-p.pdf

I dont readily recognize the FS:######, but then again, I have only dabbled superficially with Logix.

On a totally different note. I recommend that the Emerson systems sets the start and stop command tags, but that they do not reset the start and stop commands.
In stead, you evaluate the start and stop commands in your code, and after doing the evaluation your code reset these tags.
This is the most robust procedure, and means that for example a tag doesnt remain in an unwanted state if for example communication is lost.

edit: If you are too slow writing, Ken will beat you