Red Lion G3 interconnection.

Hi all,
I have a very basic question.
I'm using a G310 Red Lion HMI connected to a Allen Bradley Micrologix 1500 LRP via the serial port.
I want to add a second Red Lion G3 (a G306) to the system, showing the same screens as the first HMI.
What is it the best approach?
Can I connect the two HMIs using their ethernet port? If so, how?

Thank you!

Yes you can connect the two HMI's together. The unit which is connected to the PLC would be configured as Modbus TCP/IP Slave and the other would be configured as Master. You can use gateway blocks on the slave to share data between the PLC and the second screen.

Thanks
Jeremy

If I understand Jeremy's solution correctly, the programs on the two screens will be different. Even though both screens are visually identical, one will be accessing the PLC directly and the other will be working through gateway blocks.

If your G3 programs are complex and/or you expect to be modifying them in the future, you may want to consider putting both screens and the PLC on Ethernet (you'd need a 1761-NET-ENI for the ML1500). The advantage to this is that both screens would be talking directly to the PLC, so the G3 programs could be exactly the same (other than the unit's IP address). If you need to modify the screen program, first download to G3 #1, then just change the IP address and download to G3 #2. On a recent project that has required many modifications, doing it this way has been a huge time saver for me.

Thank you very much Jeremy and Kolyur.
Kolyur, what you say is what I usually do, but working with CompactLogix. And yes, I was aware the programs would be different. And if the HMI connected to the PLC dies, then we'll lost communication to the second one...
Jeremy, could you get me an example of the solution you suggested?

Thanks!

Elcan said:

Thank you very much Jeremy and Kolyur.
Kolyur, what you say is what I usually do, but working with CompactLogix. And yes, I was aware the programs would be different. And if the HMI connected to the PLC dies, then we'll lost communication to the second one...
Jeremy, could you get me an example of the solution you suggested?

Thanks!

Click to expand...

Sorry I don't have an example, but if you have any problems implementing this you can email me at [email protected]

Thanks
Jeremy

I've read the manual and I have many questions:
1) Which Modbus Slave protocol do I have to use on the main HMI (the one connected to the PLC)?
2) Which Modbus Master protocol do I have to use (the remote one connected to the main HMI)? I guess the "Modbus Universal Master", right?
3)For the Block settings: which type of address do I use: digita coil, digital inputs, holding registers, etc.?
4) Is it better to expose the HMI tags or the PLC addresses?
5) If I expose the HMI tags on the main screen, how do I expose the read only tags?
6) On the main HMI, do I have to create a "G3 to Device" block AND a "Device to G3" block?
7)Once I have the block(s) defined in the main HMI (Modbus Slave), how do I set the block(s) on the remote HMI so I can read/write to the main HMI?

Thank you!

If the PLC is on RS485, is this an application for the G3 driver:

Modbus RTU Monitor

on the second HMI? Would then the HMI screens be exactly the same, except for one uses the Universal Master and the second uses the RTU monitor driver? Of course, it assumes the second HMI can go on the RS485 wire easily... if not, then another solution would be required.

I have never used this driver, but this seems like it might be a good application.

robertkjonesjr said:

If the PLC is on RS485

Click to expand...

Well, I'm using the Micrologix 1500 programming cable, so I think it's RS232.

robertkjonesjr said:

on the second HMI? Would then the HMI screens be exactly the same, except for one uses the Universal Master and the second uses the RTU monitor driver?

Click to expand...

On the second HMI, the screens will be a subset of the ones on the main HMI.

If you are familar witrh Compact/Control Logix PLC's then think of Produced Consume Tags. This is basically what the gateway blocks between the 2 screens are. You set up the tags in each screen. You connect the 2 screens via an ethenet cable. This is a effective method and it is reasonably fast.

I'm using this same method. I have two G3's connected via Ethernet to a Compaxlogic PLC.(1769-L33ER). I'm having an issue where only one G3 will receive dat at a time.
For about 30 sec. then the other G3 will receive the data and the first one will not.
any ideas of what could be causing this?

Since you are using Ethernet, it is not necessary to use the method described in the original situation posed by the first post.

You should be able to have each G3 set up identically with the exception of the IP address.

Tell us more about the details of your set up, and perhaps start a new thread.

Welcome to the forum!

Thanks for the reply.

I have 2 G310's with Ethernet, connected to a PLC (1769-L33ER) through
a AB Stratix 5400 switch. Both G310's and the PLC are connected to the switch.

I've done this before with AB HMI (4 to be exact) with no issues.

For about 30 secs. panel A will display data and panel B will not and then
they will switch, panel B will display data and panel A will not. And they go back and forth like this.



Kolyur wrote:
"If your G3 programs are complex and/or you expect to be modifying them in the future, you may want to consider putting both screens and the PLC on Ethernet (you'd need a 1761-NET-ENI for the ML1500). The advantage to this is that both screens would be talking directly to the PLC, so the G3 programs could be exactly the same (other than the unit's IP address). If you need to modify the screen program, first download to G3 #1, then just change the IP address and download to G3 #2. On a recent project that has required many modifications, doing it this way has been a huge time saver for me."

Okay, so I am assuming that you are using the Allen Bradley Native Tag Driver and not Modbus, correct? Also, did you import an L5K file or manually create tags?

The Red Lion drivers can sometimes overwhelm the network or devices they are polling. Each device under the driver can have a "Comms Delay" specified. The default setting of zero means that the G3 will poll the device as fast as it can. If you add some time to the comms delay it may help. If it doesn't help, then there is something else going on.

Can you post your cd3 file? (zip if first, and in your reply, find the go advanced button to attach the zipped file).

thank you for the reply
i'm going to try the comms time first.
I'll let you know.

here is the file.