brucechase
Member
I just had the perfect opportunity for using a Micro810 over the weekend. We had a Fuji Timery Power programmable relay bite the dust and no one around here has the software, cable, or a spare relay. I called my AB distributor and had them send me over a Micro810. I thought I would give my impressions of this little thing.
One thing to note is that I am running Windows XP SP2. The CCW software did not automatically load on my computer so I had to force it. After downloading the software, I had to drill down into the folders to the CCW setup file. Double clicking on that did work, but I had to install several other components. Since we still have real old AB devices here, I haven’t been able to upgrade the software yet. Due to the slow internet connection, download and install time was about 4 hours.
RSLinx needs to be 2.57 – I was running 2.54. Now none of the other processors show up in my backup file that I saved before I upgraded. My browse files also look different for some reason. Everything shows up as non recognized device. I did load all the EDS files, but I am unsure of why this happened. Also, all my Ethernet drivers were duplicated. This is something that I will have to look at later.
One important note that I fully accepted when I bought this thing is that there is a bug in the firmware that shuts down the process every 49 days. It will need a firmware update that should be available for download next week (before the 49th day). As long as power is cycled to the unit before the 49 days is up, the counter starts over. This was something I accepted to get this installed this weekend before we started back up again.
Programming was a slight challenge. There is not much in the way of help files or resources to look at. A call to the AB tech support is a gamble. My one question (about wiring) took almost 45 minutes to answer.
Programming is not like the 500 software – it is more like 5000 software (tag based). One of the biggest challenges I had was the time base of timers. Most examples showed seconds and I wanted milliseconds. Other than that, some weird like if changed an alias, I had to do some things like open the tag and change an attribute and change it back to get it to show. The block instruction has some very powerful instructions ranging from ASCII to PID controls. The instructions also include system variables that can be used in the program.
Hooking up the USB adapter and the cable to my computer brought up the driver in RSlinx without any configuration. I chose it and the 810 showed up immediately. Download was very quick and went without problems. The front screen shows the I/O status by default so it was easy to see what was going on.
The saved file size is huge! It takes up about 2.7MB in the folder. Poking through all the files shows an access database called PrjLibrary that is 2.5MB. I assume this is used for the creation and development and isn’t downloaded to the relay.
My little 8 rung program took about 2 hours to write due mostly to not knowing the instruction set and how to move things about. After my initial try, this should be real easy. Anyone who has done any programming at all should pick this up pretty quickly. There doesn’t seem to be any type of online monitoring which I think would be needed for PID tuning or motion. Maybe the higher versions have it or I just haven’t clicked on the right button yet.
It would be great to see some others of these in service or at an automation fair or lab. I pick up more by seeing what other people have done versus just reading over a help file. I’ll post my small program for anyone who wants to see it.
One thing to note is that I am running Windows XP SP2. The CCW software did not automatically load on my computer so I had to force it. After downloading the software, I had to drill down into the folders to the CCW setup file. Double clicking on that did work, but I had to install several other components. Since we still have real old AB devices here, I haven’t been able to upgrade the software yet. Due to the slow internet connection, download and install time was about 4 hours.
RSLinx needs to be 2.57 – I was running 2.54. Now none of the other processors show up in my backup file that I saved before I upgraded. My browse files also look different for some reason. Everything shows up as non recognized device. I did load all the EDS files, but I am unsure of why this happened. Also, all my Ethernet drivers were duplicated. This is something that I will have to look at later.
One important note that I fully accepted when I bought this thing is that there is a bug in the firmware that shuts down the process every 49 days. It will need a firmware update that should be available for download next week (before the 49th day). As long as power is cycled to the unit before the 49 days is up, the counter starts over. This was something I accepted to get this installed this weekend before we started back up again.
Programming was a slight challenge. There is not much in the way of help files or resources to look at. A call to the AB tech support is a gamble. My one question (about wiring) took almost 45 minutes to answer.
Programming is not like the 500 software – it is more like 5000 software (tag based). One of the biggest challenges I had was the time base of timers. Most examples showed seconds and I wanted milliseconds. Other than that, some weird like if changed an alias, I had to do some things like open the tag and change an attribute and change it back to get it to show. The block instruction has some very powerful instructions ranging from ASCII to PID controls. The instructions also include system variables that can be used in the program.
Hooking up the USB adapter and the cable to my computer brought up the driver in RSlinx without any configuration. I chose it and the 810 showed up immediately. Download was very quick and went without problems. The front screen shows the I/O status by default so it was easy to see what was going on.
The saved file size is huge! It takes up about 2.7MB in the folder. Poking through all the files shows an access database called PrjLibrary that is 2.5MB. I assume this is used for the creation and development and isn’t downloaded to the relay.
My little 8 rung program took about 2 hours to write due mostly to not knowing the instruction set and how to move things about. After my initial try, this should be real easy. Anyone who has done any programming at all should pick this up pretty quickly. There doesn’t seem to be any type of online monitoring which I think would be needed for PID tuning or motion. Maybe the higher versions have it or I just haven’t clicked on the right button yet.
It would be great to see some others of these in service or at an automation fair or lab. I pick up more by seeing what other people have done versus just reading over a help file. I’ll post my small program for anyone who wants to see it.