WonderWare won't talk to Controllogix

Help, I am trying to get a customer's Wonderware 7.1 to talk to a Controllogix processor. System is about 12 years old and working up until recently, hard drive crashed, was replaced and files reinstalled. Using OPClink with RSLinx OPC server. Operating system is NT 4.0 so most of the new available stuff won't work. I ran WWclient and advise works. I can see information in RSlinx under the DDE/OPC topics being serviced. When WindowViewer is running there is no feedback from plc and no control of plc from Wonderware. This is a R&D line so the customer is not interested in spending money to upgrade. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Wonderware tech support has tried but due to the age of the system they are limited.

Thanks

First steps first -- from the WonderWare computer, can you ping the PLC?

Ping works, RS5000 is on this computer and can connect and go online with the plc. I made a test app with the same access name, OPCLink setup and topic but with this I get an invalid topic name error and same result from the app screen in viewer.

Hey Jim...

One of the big "gotcha's" with OPCLink (might want to investigate using FSGateway BTW) is you have to put a prefix in front of the Item in the tagname definition.

d - for discrete
i - for integer
r - for real
m - for message

EVEN BETTER: Why not just forget OPC all together..? A much easier and robust way to configure this connect would be to use the IOServer (ABCIP v7.5.01) that communicates natively to the ControlLogix (bypassing the need for RSLinx completely). I believe this version is the last to support NT4.0.

You will sleep better at night (TRUST ME). If you cannot find this version among you CD collection, let me know and I can zip it over to you. It's only 2Mb zipped.

If you could send me that file, that would be fantastic. The whole thing is turning into a bit of a nightmare and needs to be solved soon. Let me know what you need to send the file.

Send me your email addy in a Private Message. This should do the job nicely.

On it's way. Let me know if the attachment gets blocked. I zipped it.

Well I installed ABCIP and what I believe was the correct setup. When I ran WWClient I got the following errors in WWLogger,

2011/11/04 12:54:44.291/-0055:0093/ABCIP /Rejected PLC-5 ITEM = dWGON on plc at L1\CN\1.3
2011/11/04 12:54:44.291/-0055:0093/ABCIP /Invalid item name: dWGON (L1)
2011/11/04 12:54:44.291/-00C7:00C9/WWCLIENT /CallBackProc(): CLI_ADVNAK for item 0x00300390.

Not sure what is being done wrong. Anyhow this is what else I tried. Treated the whole application as corrupted. Exported windows, performed DPdump, created a new app, performed DBload, reimported windows, removed placeholders from tags, still no control feedback. Deleted RSlinx driver configuration and DDE/OPC topic. Reinstalled RSlinx driver configuration and DDE/OPC topic. Ran WWClient with OPCLink, I get positive results. I can see a discrete bit status change from 1 to 0 and back. I can poke a bit and physically turn on and off I/O. in the PLC. But WonderWare screens in WindowViewers don't do spit. No control and No feedback. My IOserver is talking to the plc, WonderWare will not talk to it's IOserver. I'd pull my hair out if I had any!!!

I noticed you still had the prefix in front of the item name when you used WWClient... for the IOServer you can drop the prefix.

Also, you do not need RSLinx for this. You need to configure the Topic name inside the ABCIP, then point the InTouch access name to the Topic you created.

WWSysCon said:

Hey Jim...

One of the big "gotcha's" with OPCLink (might want to investigate using FSGateway BTW) is you have to put a prefix in front of the Item in the tagname definition.

d - for discrete
i - for integer
r - for real
m - for message

EVEN BETTER: Why not just forget OPC all together..? A much easier and robust way to configure this connect would be to use the IOServer (ABCIP v7.5.01) that communicates natively to the ControlLogix (bypassing the need for RSLinx completely). I believe this version is the last to support NT4.0.

You will sleep better at night (TRUST ME). If you cannot find this version among you CD collection, let me know and I can zip it over to you. It's only 2Mb zipped.

Click to expand...

Hi there, sorry to butt in-- i am having similar issues trying to connect to a CLX PLC from Wonderware. Is there any way you could send me the ABCIP (V7.5.01) file too?

bonnie, I doubt WW is reading a 8 month old topic. You can try PM him.

btw. I do wish the OP update the thread and not just leave if the solution worked.

I'm still here..!! and I agree, I wish the OP would check back. I'm not technically in the "support" role, but it is one of the MAJOR issues with any tech support department... incomplete logs.

Oh well... bonnie, I recommended that version to the OP because he was using a rather OLD operating system. You may be able to take advantage of the newer DAServer (DASABCIP). Tell us about your problem.

WWSysCon said:

I'm still here..!! and I agree, I wish the OP would check back. I'm not technically in the "support" role, but it is one of the MAJOR issues with any tech support department... incomplete logs.

Oh well... bonnie, I recommended that version to the OP because he was using a rather OLD operating system. You may be able to take advantage of the newer DAServer (DASABCIP). Tell us about your problem.

Click to expand...

Hi WW, thanks for the response. Here is the situation:

I'm quite familiar with AB FactoryTalk Historian, but am completely new to Wonderware. I'm using Wonderware Historian 10.0, and have the server and the client installed on the same PC (a VM) for testing. I am using RSLinx Gateway v2.59. The OS is Windows XP SP3. I'm trying to talk to some ControlLogix PLCs in the office (1756-L61 and 1756-L75).

Ultimately I will need to set up the historian to log analog data and discrete events, but am not there yet.

First of all, I'm confused about which IO Server to use. It seems the only IO Server on the CD listed under the "Allen Bradley" category that mentioned compatibility with ControlLogix was the ABCIP driver. I'm not sure which version it is. The documentation on the CD says the following:

"It can access data in PLC-5, SLC-500 and Logix-5000 Controller (emulating PLC-5 or SLC-500) from Ethernet connected to the ControlLogix Gateway"

The emulation method is the method i was attempting to read from the PLC, which involved mapping tags in RSLogix. When configuring the topic, there is a radio button for "Logix 5000", but it is always greyed out, and i am not sure why.

The topic i configured in this manner appeared to be working fine at first, as it seemed to connect and showed up in the active topics list in the IO server. But, When I used AdviseEx to attempt a read, the status would go to bad, with quality of 16#0018, which, if i'm understanding this right, comes out to a quality of 0 (bad), a substatus of 6 (comm failure), and a limit of 0 (not limited).

I was following this method: http://fa.sammicomputer.co.kr/TECH/html/T000874.htm

It seems this is probably a dated method, so i thought there was an updated version of the IO server that could talk to CLX without emulation..

Eh... I guess that's it in a nutshell. Sorry for the disorganization!

Hi Bonnie...

You can use the newest version of our DA Server (DASABCIP v4.1.2) which can be downloaded from wdn.wonderware.com

This version supports your OS, includes support for version 18.x and 19.x firmware versions for the ControlLogix, CompactLogix.

This version also supports the CL 557x controllers up to v19.11 firmware, as well as the 1756-L7x Family of PLC's (including the RM series).

The DAServer also functions as an OPC Server, so you can use any standard OPC Client if you desire. When you use our DAServer, you do not require the use of RSLinx in any fashion. You can acquire the data directly from the device and store in directly to our Historian by configuring the Historian. The help files can be found when you open the System Management Console (SMC) and go to help on the menu. The SMC is also where you will go to to configure the Historian, as well as the DAServer. There are also many TechNotes available on our WDN website. You must register obviously to get access, but that is merely a formality.

Hope this helps... I'll be watching.

WWSysCon said:

Hi Bonnie...

You can use the newest version of our DA Server (DASABCIP v4.1.2) which can be downloaded from wdn.wonderware.com

This version supports your OS, includes support for version 18.x and 19.x firmware versions for the ControlLogix, CompactLogix.

This version also supports the CL 557x controllers up to v19.11 firmware, as well as the 1756-L7x Family of PLC's (including the RM series).

The DAServer also functions as an OPC Server, so you can use any standard OPC Client if you desire. When you use our DAServer, you do not require the use of RSLinx in any fashion. You can acquire the data directly from the device and store in directly to our Historian by configuring the Historian. The help files can be found when you open the System Management Console (SMC) and go to help on the menu. The SMC is also where you will go to to configure the Historian, as well as the DAServer. There are also many TechNotes available on our WDN website. You must register obviously to get access, but that is merely a formality.

Hope this helps... I'll be watching.

Click to expand...

Hi there, thanks for the info! WDN looks like a great resource. I have downloaded the ABCIP DAServer you mentioned but will not have a chance to play with it until Monday. I'll let you know how it goes.

On a side note, do you happen to know why the historian will give the error: "Fatal initialization error: unable to start" even WITH TCP/IP enabled in the SQL Server configuration?