RSlinx Communication Issues/Printing issues

Hi guys, new to this forum so bear with me.

Problem 1: I have installed RSLinx countless times over the past couple of years, always without trouble. Until now. The last time I did it, the laptop was able to communicate just fine or a week, and now I cannot see any PLC 5's on the network. I can see 500's just fine. I have triple checked the drivers, and they all are set where they normally are, yet I still cannot see any PLC 5's. I am communicating over DH+ using a PCMK card.

I believe a clean Windows installation will fix the problem, but would like to know if anyone has come across this before. I uninstalled/reinstalled RSLinx, and the driver for the PCMK card, and it worked for about 30 mins and then quit again. Its a bare bones laptop with no special software on there. Any prods in the right direction would be much appreciated.

Problem 2: How can I print a program from RSLogix5/500 and actually make it look good. It seems that no matter how I print it, it always get split up over different pages, with some pages completely blank except or maybe one tiny piece of code. It just doesnt seem to make sense to me. There is no logical reason or printing it like that. Also I saw how someone converted a program to PDF file. How would I go about this?

Thanks in advance guys.

1. The scary part is "it worked for 30 minutes". Could your PCMK card be dying or the slot it is in have a problem?

2. Each time the report encounters a Page Title in the program, it will start a new page. If the program has a simple rung with a page title, and the vey next rung has a page title as well, that simple rung will end up all by itself in the report. You can try deleting or moving page titles around to get a cleaner report. You can always discard those changes after printing to get the page titles back how they are now.

Hope this helps.
Paul

As far as creating a PDF, check out www.PDF995.com or www.cutepdf.com

These install as if they were a printer. From any windows program, including RSLogix500, select the PDF printer when printing. The result ends up in a file.

A couple of questions which may be irrelevant but woth asking:-

1. Have you recently carried out windows updates and installed XP SP3??

2. Have you tried removing the driver for your card and re-installing it?

LH

Longhorn said:

A couple of questions which may be irrelevant but woth asking:-

1. Have you recently carried out windows updates and installed XP SP3??

2. Have you tried removing the driver for your card and re-installing it?

LH

Click to expand...

1. Yes this is on an XP Sp3 installation. I plan on going in tonight, and installing XP up to SP2 and have a suspicion that it will work. I am mainly just curious as to why it is having such problems.

2. Yes I reinstalled the driver, and it worked for about 30 mins and then quit again. Yes it could theoretically be a bad card. Just seems strange that it only has trouble with PLC 5's and not 500's.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone.

Ok quick update.

Thanks Paul for your help with the printing. I had no idea it splits up the report based on Page Titles. I was also able to print to a PDF so I am real happy with that progress.

With the communication issue, I am still stumped. I suspected XP SP3 might be the issue. So I did a clean install of XP SP2. Installed RSLinx/RSLogix. Everything installed nice and clean. I was 99% sure that would fix my problem. Except it didnt.

Now, here is the quirky part. On this particular network, I have 2 SLC 500's. amd 2 PLC 5's. I hooked the laptop up to one of the SLC's, and was actually able to get online on the PLC 5 through it. I hooked the laptop back up to the PLC 5 directly, and lo and behold I can see everything on the network and everything works as it should. I have no clue what would cause this.

I was using a PCMK 1784 Series A card. Thinking it might be the problem, I swapped it for a Series B card. Same problem. I tried using the other PCMCIA slot. Same issue.

Anyone have any possible ideas? Although it works now, it only started after I hooked up through the SLC, so my gut is telling me its going to quit again :-(

What are the DH+ addresses of all of the PLCs and of your PCMK?

I am going off memory here, but I believe the PLCs/Panelviews are like 00->07 and my PCMK is 65. Addresses have never been an issue before on this network. I have another laptop, with identical RSLinx settings, that works just fine.