Simatic Drive ES

Hello all,

I found myself in the awful predicament of trying to rebuild a maintenance PC for one of our Siemens production lines. The old one died. I have a new PC and am trying to get the software all up and running.

I have purchased the required upgrade software packages (S7 V5.5, Drive ES V5.5) and I am very close to have everything working, just not close enough. My background is AB, 95% of our plant is AB, but I will say that we hardly have any trouble with our Siemens gear. Perhaps this is why my experience with Siemens is minimal.

I am having trouble with being able to get online to our Simovert Masterdrives in the Step 7 environment. When I click on a parameter list for a drive, DriveMonitor opens up and I can see the offline parameter settings. When I click to go online, I get a warning message that says "Module ### cannot be accessed via the set online interface."

All of the drives are on a Profibus network. I have Profibus/DP selected in the Drive ES ComParam menu. When I select Profibus in the Drive ES Comparam window, the software tells me that "Additional bus parameters for the Profibus via dialog 'Set PG/PC Interface'". I then go to Simatic Manager into the 'Set PG/PC Interface' window, but I do not see where I am meant to edit any Profibus settings for Drive ES.

I can get online to the PLC fine over an Ethernet connection that I have set up in the PG/PC Interface.

I have a feeling I am missing something simple somewhere that just gets lost in translation, and I am hoping you guys can help out!!

Thanks in advance!

Dear Crammed,
I can tell you what I went through to set up something like this . ..

My system has what we call a 'PCPC' computer which has a PLC on a PCI slot card installed in it.

I had to set the PGPC interface to the NIC card of the computer. (Not Profibus.)

From the S7 project, open the configuration. Locate a drive, and write down its 'DP Address'. (I believe this is the profibus address of the drive.) Right click on the Profibus line (the drive is on) and select 'Object Properties'. From the Properties dialog window, click the Properties Button. Write down the S7 subnet ID. (Mine is 012D-0004.) Close the Hardware Configuration application.

Right Click the Drives section of the project. From the pop up menu, choose 'Object Properties'. Click the Drive Tab then set the Bus Address to the DP address of the drive.

(I had to 'insert a new drive' - I was setting up access to the drives.)

Now my instructions get fuzzy . . I believe it was right click the drive, Target Device, Online Access -> Select Module Address.

Then I have a dialog box open 'Properties - Drives (online)'. I click the 'Module Addresses' tab then I set the 'Target Station' to 'Accessible via network transition'. At this point the bottom part of the dialog has 'Connection to target station'. Type was set to 'PROFIBUS' and the address was already set. I had to enter the 's7 subnet ID' (012d-0004). Then I set the type to 'IP' and set the Address to the IP address of the NIC card.

Once that was all set I was able to go online with the drives and download the parameters into the PCPC computer.

MadPoet.

I feel like I am so close!! I was able to get the Profibus subnet ID, and I know the node addresses of the drives on the network. I have 47 drives on this particular Profibus network.

I was able to follow you right up until your instructions got fuzzy. Thus far I am not able to click anywhere that gives me any type of "Target Device" or "Online Access" selections. I will however keep on clicking. It is probably one thing I have become quite good at in S7 - clicking everywhere!! haha..

Hopefully I will be able to take this direction, keep clicking, and maybe google a solution. If I sort it, I will post it here, alternatively I will pray that an answer will be replied below!!

Thanks for your help so far!!

Aha!! I have found some of the windows that you refer to, as in where I enter the S7 subnet ID. This appears to be all information that one enters when they are configuring a new drive onto the network as I am not able to edit a drive that is already configured. The data is read only. The subnet IDs are all set correctly.

I found a screen that shows me the Properties - Drive(online) window, interestingly enough this window does not have any data in the "Connect to target station" area. I can only access this window while I am online in S7 manager, and I am not able to enter any data in this window at all.

The clicking continues.

It has been a long while since I used DriveMonitor.
I use STARTER (for Micromaster 4 and Sinamics).
But I think that maybe the dialog for online access is very similar if not exactly the same.

Regarding the Profibus Bus parameters, they have to be set correctly for the online hardware to be able to go online. You can do this manually, or if you have a PG/PC it can be set in the project. Anyway, if you have an S7 CPU on the same Profibus network, and you can go online that way, then you can also go online with drives on the same network. So all the settings for bus parameters, subnet ID etc. etc. are irrelevant if you can go online with the CPU already.

In STARTER, you set the access point via the menu bar ... Options ... Set PG/PC Interface.
Notice that there are two possible access points "S7ONLINE" (same as used by STEP7) and "DEVICE" (can be used by STARTER and maybe Drivemonitor if the access methods for PLC and drives are different, i.e. Ethernet for the PLC and Profibus for the drive).

In STARTER, you then select if you go online via S7ONLINE or DEVICE by selecting the drive in the project tree, browse down to Control Unit ... Communication ... Commisioning Interface. You can also fiddle with other communication settings here.

In STARTER, you then specify the exact connection data by selecting the relevant drive in the project tree, right-click, and select Target Device ... Online access. A dialog will appear where you set the Rack (always 0), Slot (always 2) and Ethernet or Profibus node address.
(I believe you have to go through this step, even if one should assume it is already specified in the previous step).
You can also select that the connection is via a Network Transition, for example Ethernet to Profibus via Routing over an S7 CPU.

That is it, you should then be able to go online with the drive.

Sorry I got fuzzy. It's been a couple of months since I did this, and I learned how to use Starter to get at some MicroMaster 420's since then . .

Anyway. At the Step 7 project, I had to :

Right Click the Project and 'Insert new Object' -> 'Drive'.

(I inserted 'Profibus 20'. Insure the Drive type is correct and set the Bus Address to the correct Profibus Address.)

Insert a parameter set inside the drive.
Double Click the parameter Set and watch the Drive Monitor Program come up.

Click the E2 button (try to go online with the drive).

I got an error box with words to the effect 'No Suitable Station Address'.
When I cleared that box I was looking at the "Properties - Drive (online)" dialog box where I could then select 'Accessible via Gateway'.

Check that the Profibus address is right, insert the S7 subnet ID, set type to IP, and enter the IP address.

After that it should go online with the drive and I was able to download the parameter set.

(I hope this works for you.)
Poet.

I think that Crammed77 have a direct Profibus connection.
So no need for the Gateway part. And you also only need to set the Subnet if you do not need access via Gateway/Routing.

edit: A "not" had snuck in.

Dear Jesper,
I'm not sure if his maintenance computer is on the Profibus or not . . .

He did say that he could access the PLC via Ethernet.

All I know for sure, is that in my system to reach the drives (And I have some instruction from the machine vendor on how to do this) I had to set my PG/PC interface to the NIC card in the computer and then I was able to do as I have described.

Out of curiosity, does the Profibus ever attach directly to a computer?
In my system, one PLC is on a card inside the computer and one Profibus attaches to the PLC card. There is a software PLC in the beast, which uses a Profibus interface card (CP5613) to get out on a second Profibus. And there is another stand alone PLC which runs a third Profibus. This computer also has two network interface connections running to one switch. (With two IP addresses.)

Poet.

Be the way, to use Starter I had to access those MicroMaster Drives the same way. PG/PC interface set to the NIC card and 'Accessible via Gateway' with the IP address set to one of the computers IP addresses. (Same address I used with Drive Monitor.)

Poet.

Crammed77 > I found myself in the awful predicament of trying to rebuild a maintenance PC for one of our Siemens production lines.

Dear Crammed,
Out of curiosity, do your other lines have maintenance PC's on them?
(Have you looked at how they access the drives?)

And, I have had good luck using 'Ghost' (A Symantec product) to create an image of a computers hard drive which can then be 'reinstalled' on a second hard drive. Some of my computers have two hard drives in them - one plugged up and one not. The second drive is an image of the first so if a drive fails all we have to do is move the wires to the second drive and boot it back up.

I have also had some luck in taking a 'ghost image' from one computer and re-imaging the hard drive in a different computer. It usually takes some time and a couple of reboots for Windows to sort everything back out but as long as the computers are not too different it does make it possible to recover from a complete computer breakdown.

(I also like using a bootable USB stick to create, store, and re-image drives from. I have one thirty two Gig stick with the images for three critical computers on it.)

Poet.

Crammed77, right, you did indeed state it quite clearly.

I had to set the PGPC interface to the NIC card of the computer. (Not Profibus.)

Click to expand...

I have a tendency to skim the text a bit too quickly.

In that case, yes if you want to access the drive via the S7 PLCs ethernet and profibus ports and routing, then all the advice given about subnet, routers and gateways all apply.

Out of curiosity, does the Profibus ever attach directly to a computer?

Click to expand...

Yes, it is possible for programming, for HMI online access, for drives, etc.
But the world has transitioned to ethernet, so you see complex profibus setups only in older existing projects.

Crammed
So your trying to connect to your masterdrive via routing?
ie ethernet from the cpu to masterdrive on profibus?

if so
Here's a series of screenshots...
this is how it works..

Your Masterdrives should be integrated using DriveES and thus the drives "hang" from the cpu

Your have a PG/PC here?
If not- add one

Under Interfaces Tab
Make your look like this- get rid of ISO
The IP address shown here is your PC's and should be in the same range of the S7 CPU's settings
you know what I mean...