"Recipe" handling system woes with SLC and FactoryTalk View

Ken Roach · Mar 24, 2020

Is there any evidence that your recipe handling problems are related to your fieldbus at all ?

If not, then set that discussion aside.

Investigate and diagnose how the various Clients interact with the batching logic.

The logic in the PLC essentially waits to see all the quantities to change from -32767 to something different and if all of them are different and a start bit is made, it copies the addition data onto a buffer and then another part of the program deals with the requests in the buffer and routes the addition through.

That trigger is the first thing I would experiment with. Maybe add a couple seconds delay after the "not 0xFFFF" condition before that data is copied into a buffer, to be sure that any queued writes from the recipe logic in the HMI have completed.

I have spent about 12 years fine-tuning a similarly VBA-driven recipe system, on a machine overseas. I have some experience in un-doing other people's bandages.

VAN · Mar 25, 2020

cardosocea said:
I'm open to suggestions too... particularly ones that don't involve hardwiring every valve and using Ethernet IO because it's cool.

https://www.balluff.com/local/us/productfinder/#/ca/A0009/cg/G0901?cal_iolink

Rockwell has its own version that is called armor IO or something like that, I never used it personally. Balluff is pretty solid for remote IO and not wanting to build a control panel (even though some sites still required it).

What you might be looking for with valves is a pneumatic solenoid block.

https://www.smcusa.com/products/Manifold-for-EX500-Side-Bottom-Ported-SS5Y7-10-11S~158463

I've had good success with SMC products but I will warn you, they are sometime really bad at being setup. (It's just because I don't set them up enough and my current site doesn't use them.)

Really, whatever you can't find talk to a rep from either company and they might be able to point you in the right direction even if it's not their own product.

I believe Endress+Hauser has Ethernet flow monitor as well.

edit - I'm pretty sure every vfd/soft start out their has ethernet capability as well. Just make sure you run voltage rated ethernet cable and not just normal ethernet.

cardosocea · Mar 26, 2020

Ken Roach said:
Is there any evidence that your recipe handling problems are related to your fieldbus at all ?

Very much doubt it. It would be a fantastic coincidence for it to malfunction and successfully deliver product rather than just keeping valves open/closed. And do it repeatedly at that...

Ken Roach said:
That trigger is the first thing I would experiment with. Maybe add a couple seconds delay after the "not 0xFFFF" condition before that data is copied into a buffer, to be sure that any queued writes from the recipe logic in the HMI have completed.

Yes. At first I thought about that, but the PLC must see all values change from 0xFFFF before it does anything. Now, in Profibus and siemens kit, when reading contiguous bytes they had what they called a consistent read which enforced that all bytes from that read instruction would be available only when all had been read and not like two bytes of the new value and 2 bytes of the old one. I don't think this would happen in Rockwell, but obviously doesn't hurt sticking an half a second delay to try.

cardosocea · Mar 26, 2020

VAN said:
https://www.balluff.com/local/us/productfinder/#/ca/A0009/cg/G0901?cal_iolink

Rockwell has its own version that is called armor IO or something like that, I never used it personally. Balluff is pretty solid for remote IO and not wanting to build a control panel (even though some sites still required it).

What you might be looking for with valves is a pneumatic solenoid block.

https://www.smcusa.com/products/Manifold-for-EX500-Side-Bottom-Ported-SS5Y7-10-11S~158463

I've had good success with SMC products but I will warn you, they are sometime really bad at being setup. (It's just because I don't set them up enough and my current site doesn't use them.)

Really, whatever you can't find talk to a rep from either company and they might be able to point you in the right direction even if it's not their own product.

I believe Endress+Hauser has Ethernet flow monitor as well.

edit - I'm pretty sure every vfd/soft start out their has ethernet capability as well. Just make sure you run voltage rated ethernet cable and not just normal ethernet.

Thanks for this. I don't think any of these are ATEX rated, which is a problem for me. The SMC ethernet IP block on the other hand seems just about right for another panel I'm looking into.

kamenges · Mar 26, 2020

Originally posted by cardosocea:

Very much doubt it.

Ken was asking a question with an obvious answer. This thread came completely of the rails starting with post #3 and he was trying to gently nudge it back on course.

Originally posted by cardosocea:

I don't think this would happen in Rockwell, but obviously doesn't hurt sticking an half a second delay to try.

I don't think this can happen with the SLC platform. I believe comms processing happens in the housekeeping portion of the scan. That should keep all the data together pretty well.

Keith

VAN · Mar 26, 2020

cardosocea said:
Thanks for this. I don't think any of these are ATEX rated, which is a problem for me. The SMC ethernet IP block on the other hand seems just about right for another panel I'm looking into.

Dude, don't even get me started on rated stuff. FLIR has a bunch of badass IR cameras that aren't rated. I wanted to put one in a class 1 div 2 (from memory) and the only solution was to put it in an enclosure that was class 1 div 2. It wasn't even part of controls/plcs I just wanted to catch fires before they happened (real fires, not "fires"). If I recall right, FLIR was a solid NO we wont rate anything, and I lost interest in trying to get a setup rated (didn't have capitol, as getting it certified at the time was more than the operation cared about).

I think this is a niche field that could make millions but nobody has really taken it on. I'm not really sure why but if I decide to change careers maybe I'll start my own business and go that direction.

cardosocea · Mar 27, 2020

VAN said:
I think this is a niche field that could make millions but nobody has really taken it on. I'm not really sure why but if I decide to change careers maybe I'll start my own business and go that direction.

They sell them in the UK...
https://www.flir.co.uk/products/a310-ex/

Det tronics also have one now

https://www.det-tronics.com/Products/xwatch-industrial-video-surveillance-camera

Pretty expensive stuff, but it exists. This is Exd, so Class 1 div 2 is definitely covered by it, but I wonder if they certified it for use in the States or if it's ATEX only?

VAN · Mar 27, 2020

cardosocea said:
They sell them in the UK...
https://www.flir.co.uk/products/a310-ex/

Det tronics also have one now

https://www.det-tronics.com/Products/xwatch-industrial-video-surveillance-camera

Pretty expensive stuff, but it exists. This is Exd, so Class 1 div 2 is definitely covered by it, but I wonder if they certified it for use in the States or if it's ATEX only?

Good to know, they didn't have anything when I was looking. Now I'm in a different field so maybe people hounded them enough they built one.

"Recipe" handling system woes with SLC and FactoryTalk View

Ken Roach

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