New to Controlnet

I'm about to be given a project which will require adding flex i/o nodes to an existing Cnet installation. I haven't seen networx for cnet but have used Dnet plenty of times. There must be a significant difference or there wouldn't be two products, so will my Dnet experience count for anything or will I be starting from scratch?

99% very much so (You will be starting from scratch)...The 1% consists of "both are Master/Slave token fieldbus networks" and they "both have Scanlists".
What platform?

Hmm, sounds ominous. PLC is contrologix although I'm only familiar with compactlogix.

Be careful...You will really have the chance of shutting the entire place down if anything goes wrong...

...And it surely will

Study the posted link manual carefully and chime in if you have any particular questions; you'll have to start somewhere anyway...

Thank you.

dmargineau said:

Be careful...You will really have the chance of shutting the entire place down if anything goes wrong...

Click to expand...

Well, you will virtually have to shut the place down anyway, because re-scheduling the network will need the controller in Program Mode.

You can ONLY add Flex I/O into the ControlLogix project OFF-LINE, after which you will need to Download.

Just done exactly this task yesterday, added several Flex I/O rails to an existing ControlNet network.

Here is how we did the task....

Go ONLINE first, then put the controller into program mode, so that nothing can change.

Do a complete Save, including data.

Go OFFLINE, and add the new Flex I/O adapters and I/O modules into the I/O configuration.

Download the project to the controller.

Connect up the new Flex adapters, the I/O modules do need to be installed on their bases.

Start RSNetworx for ControlNet, and "Go Online" to the network. It will poll the network for ControlNet nodes (the "onlink"), then build the "offlink", discovering all the modules.

Carefully check that all the hardware has been discovered by RSNetworx.

If all is present and correct, proceed with re-scheduling of the network.

Hopefully when it is done, the I/O light on the processor should be steady green.

Well, Daba, you do make it sound easy! Thanks for the tips. I find these situations a more efficient way to lose hair than an industrial accident, but it keeps a roof over my head. Lots of bedtime reading, methinks.

Well OK, I may have made it sound easy, but it isn't always so... Sometimes RSNetworx fails to perform an online task, usually solved with "retry" until it does.

I had also forgotten to mention that it is useful to browse the network with RSLinx, to ensure that the modules you create in the project I/O configuration are at the correct node addresses, and "match" (to the level of electronic keying you are using), the revision of the modules you have.

If RSLinx can not see all the hardware correctly, there is no point in trying to schedule the network with RSNetworx.

If RSLinx shows yellow question marks for any of the hardware, then you don't have the necessary EDS file installed on your machine. Latest trend is to be able to upload the EDS from the device itself, and it will install semi-automatically, but I don't know if the Flex ACN supports that, or if it does, what revision it was included.