SLC Communications

Hi,

As my experience is limited to micrologix, I was hoping to get a few answers re SLC500/04 processors.

Is the program/protect jumper on the board only for O/S upgrades? - ie not required to upload or download used programs?

I have a 500/04 system which talks to a panelview 500 via serial DH485. When I connect to the 04 serially using DF1 RS232 and download a good working program, it won't run and flashes error. Is this because it can't communicate with the PV since it need to go back to DH485?
When I move the program from EEPROM to memory, it runs perfectly. However, after a power cycle it no longer works and gives errors. I've tried this with 2 boards, both with good batteries. Any ideas why the battery backed ram loses the good working program on power cycle?

Thanks for any help.

Canuck

canuck said:

Hi,

As my experience is limited to micrologix, I was hoping to get a few answers re SLC500/04 processors.

Is the program/protect jumper on the board only for O/S upgrades? - ie not required to upload or download used programs?

Click to expand...

That is correct. It's only for firmware upgrades.

canuck said:

I have a 500/04 system which talks to a panelview 500 via serial DH485. When I connect to the 04 serially using DF1 RS232 and download a good working program, it won't run and flashes error. Is this because it can't communicate with the PV since it need to go back to DH485?

Click to expand...

I have not seen a SLC fault because of a communication error. Now it may stop communicating because of a program or hardware fault. It should not care at all about being able to talk to the PanelView, however the program may not allow you to do anything as far as running the machine when communications fail.

canuck said:

When I move the program from EEPROM to memory, it runs perfectly. However, after a power cycle it no longer works and gives errors. I've tried this with 2 boards, both with good batteries. Any ideas why the battery backed ram loses the good working program on power cycle?

Thanks for any help.

Canuck

Click to expand...

Once you download your program changes to the SLC RAM, then you need to leave it in program mode while you store the program from the SLC RAM into its EEPROM. While online and in Program Mode, from the RSLogix Comms menu choose EEPROM -> Store to EEPROM. This will probably kick you offline because the SLC will stop communicating momentarily, but you should be able to get right back online within a couple seconds.

The SLC can be configured to load a program from EEPROM based on some settings in the Status file. Depending on how those are set in your program, it may reload from EEPROM every power cycle, or only when there's a memory fault.

Look closely at the Processor Status -> Memory Module tab to see how it's configured, and while you're at it, make a note of the fault code you are seeing by looking at the Errors tab.

Paul