DPI Comm Loss PWRFLX 40, 22,Comm-E

Hello fellows.
I just ran into a rather interesting issue. Our plant was down this morning so I was going around uploading all my drive profiles with my newly atained copy of Drive Tools using Drive Executive. I uploaded parms from 15 different drives of all different Allen Bradley line ups. One in particular gave a little trouble. This is a PWRFLX 40 on Ethernet comm with a 22-Comm_E card. I unscrew the card and let it dangle by the ribbon cable and ethernet cable being very careful to not let it touch anything else. I plug in my 1203 USB device and hit connect to drive. The first time It actually connected and displayed the parameters but during the saving process the drive faulted . F81 and connection was lost. I unplugged my 1203 USB and re-set the drive. All good. I then re-inserted the 1203 USB connector and to my suprise the drive faulted immediatly. Strange. So I disconnected the 1203, re-set the fault and proceeded to download my params over ethernet no problem. What I am wondering is why my drive faulted when plugging in the 1203 USB. I have uploaded from the very same drive and comm configuration even directly beside this one in the very same panel, different I.P. of course.
Any thoughts on this? Maby my drive is on the way out.

Why did you unscrew the card and let it dangle... was this so you could use the 1203-USB instead of the Ethernet network ?

My recollection is that the 22-COMM-E needs to be securely grounded via a mounting screw, so it's very possible that by "letting it dangle" you caused the 22-COMM-E to fault, which caused a "crash" of the little DSI network, which resulting in both the disconnection of your 1203-USB and the F81 fault on the drive.

That is exactly why I let it dangle. So I could plug into the port behind the card. I have read that tthe card must be securly rounded but thi is the first time I have had an issue with this. I had thought about this possibility.


Thanks for the reply

22-com

When you back up single drives alone which is fine if one drive fails but you will not back up the 20-comm card configuration using the usb which is an important part of that network

Thats a good point. Comm-E configuration is completely separate from drive. Its its own unique device with its own parameters. I always disliked this setup.