Series Six Serial Communication ?

Hello, we have a lots of legacy PLC series six in our plant and we normaly connect our workmaster to our series six using Parallel communication. We are planning to use PC's instead of Workmaster, coz some of our workmaster are no longer in good condition. My question is this,

Is real-time monitor possible using serial communication ( Workmaster to CCM2 Card)? if yes, How ?. I don't have much information about this. Please help.

Thanks

Rey

The CCM card goes in slot 5 of your CPU chassis. That's the slot immediately to the left of the Logic Memory module.

You need to be running the serial port version of Logicmaster Six software. That's a different set of master disks. When you first launch Logicmaster, it tells you whether you're loading the serial or parallel version.

The parallel interface card can be removed from the Workmaster and installed in a newer computer that has two adjacent full-size ISA slots. I'm assuming that you're talking about the Wrokmaster I computer, which was an IBM XT clone. If you have the Workmaster II computer, you have fewer options. The parallel interface card for the Workmaster II requires a micro-channel backplane.

The serial port communications is slower than parallel, but not objectionably so.

raleonar said:

Hello, we have a lots of legacy PLC series six in our plant and we normaly connect our workmaster to our series six using Parallel communication. We are planning to use PC's instead of Workmaster, coz some of our workmaster are no longer in good condition. My question is this,

Is real-time monitor possible using serial communication ( Workmaster to CCM2 Card)? if yes, How ? . I don't have much information about this. Please help.

Thanks

Rey

Click to expand...

You will first need the serial version of the LM6 software.

Its very slow.

The best way to introduce a PC in this loop is to have a GE parallel communication card (WASI card). You should be able to find it on the web. I don't know if GE still sells those but they where VERY VERY expensive. They permited you to have the exact same screen you had on them GE PCs.

I also thinck that you might not be able to "on-line" changes with only the serial through CCM2 card setup.

Be watchfull that to use this GE card in a PC you will need an older PC cause this card is about 10" long and will fit in isa 8 bit slots.

If we can get "rootboy " into this discussion he shure could give you more than I.

Rey

I would go with Steve's suggestion of removing your parallel interface cards and 'sticking' it in a newer PC. As previously pointed out, they are quite large and require 2 ISA slots to fit them, this limits the choice of PC's and many now do not come with ISA slots.

LM6, although a DOS program will run quite happily in a DOS window providing the hard drive is formatted in FAT16, and you change the config.sys file to suit the program. I can give you full details on this if you require it. Another thing to watch for is the processor speed, you may have to turn off the processor cache, this will also depend on what version of LM6 you are running, we have recently 'upgraded' to LM6 4.1 which doesn't seem to worry about processor speed. Our older version of LM6 (not sure what version it was) didn't like running on a processor faster than 150mHz and it certainly couldn't stand pentiums!

if you want more details on any of the above then let me know, we have 19 of these beasts, all connected to PC's running Windows 98 (FAT16) with the PC's running remote control software (PCDuo not PCAnywhere) and they work just fine!

Paul

Thank you guys, for the quick reply on my query.

So as I understand on your replies, on-line monitor is possible on PC using serial communication to series six with the Serial version of Logicmaster BUT it is very SLOW according to your reply.

Just this morning, I'd tried to configure my PC (AT/286), no WASI card on it, to connect serially to the CCM2 module using the serial version of the LogicMaster (ver. 4.2). I was able to load the ladder program from the S6 to the PC but when I display the ladder program it seems it is only on the OFFLINE MODE, I can't set it to MONITOR mode. Is there any "key stroke" to be use to set it to MONITOR MODE? or any special configuration to be set-up in the CCM or in the PC. I am using DOS 3.2 as PC operating system, does it matter?

Rey

raleonar said:

I can't set it to MONITOR mode. Is there any "key stroke" to be use to set it to MONITOR MODE?

Click to expand...

The PC key strokes are different to the workmaster keystrokes, to switch between, offline, monitor and online mode, press and hold the ALT key and then press the F1 key. Press it once to go from offline to monitor, press the F1 key again to go from monitor to online modes.

A few other keystrokes you might not be aware of are:-

Outputs (O) = Backspace key
Inputs (I) = minus key (numerical part of keyboard)
Auxilary (A) = scroll lock key
Registers (R) = page up key
Enter = page down key or CTRL & E

Hope this helps

Paul

Thanks Paul for keystroke....rey

So using the serial software on my PC I can just plug a DB-25 or DB-9 cable from the PC serial port to either the J1 (db-25) or J2 (db-9) on the Comm. Control board and program the series six that way? The last parallel card we bought was $3500. If I could do it via serial I would be the hero!

Simmons,

Barring compatibility issues between the CCM card and the Logic Control, or Arithmetic Control modules, you should be able to plug a CCM card into slot five and communicate.

As has been mentioned, it is considerably slower than parallel communications. Also, you have to stop the PLC when downloading program changes where parallel lets you keep the program running while briefly suspending I/U updates.

I am trying to get a hold of Logicmaster 6 serial version, I am also trying to use a PC to program a series 6 plc remotely and this would be the first step since you cant really log into a WM via the internet.

Does anyone have a copy they can send me? My email is [email protected]