Jiri Toman
Member
- Join Date
- Jun 2002
- Posts
- 498
I would like to share some info with you that has to do with AB Ultra 5000. I had a job recently that involved revamping a butchered up system supplied by a vendor from Indiana. Will not mention names. All the programming for the motion as well as the analog and digital I/O was done in C within the Ultra5000.
The HMI used is PV600.
In order to be able to de-bug and emulate the system I had obtained a demo from AB distributor. This is an AB made demo with PV550 and Ultra5000 as well as lights and switches wired to I/O.
I purchased a new UltraWare to do the programming. I reset the
Ultra5000 to factory settings to clear it up and proceeded to download the program created by the vendor. Then I installed
the pvserv.exe driver from the new UltraWare CD ROM. I installed
the PV 600 program into the PV550. UltraWare CD does not include any re-flash files to upgrade the Ultra5000 firmware.
I could not get the PV550 to communicate to the Ultra5000.
Well so I went and bought the PV600 so that I would have a precise match to what was being used in the field. I could not get it to communicate. Well it did kind of communicate, it showed the PV600 as being connected but the data was not getting through!
Contacted the Tech connect people. Got an app note on how to set it up. Followed it to the tee. Did not work! After numerous phone calls to tech connect and to the local AB office I was told actually by one guy in tech connect that I was argumentative.
wow. In my desperation I went back to the original demo setup
with PV550 knowing that this should work. Could not get it to work. After 3 days of exhaustive hacking at it I went to the AB's web site and was looking at knowledge base. I found a pvserv.exe driver there and after examining the file I noticed that it is about 2k smaller than the one I had. I downloaded it and installed it in the Ultra5000 and it worked right away with PV550. Wow. AB in their ultimate act of stupidity has decided to have a new pvserv.exe driver without doing any Rev control what so ever!!! In other words you now have a situation where different revisions of Ultra5000 firmware might or might not match the particular pvserv.exe driver! Is that stupid or what?
But wait I am not done!
I moved from the PV550 to the PV600 and it's not working??
Now what?
I am looking at the cables and I have noticed that there are only 3 pins needed 2-2, 3-3, 5-5 clearly no handshaking! Yet the genius who wrote the app. note on how to connect PV to the Ultra5000 said clearly to use the handshake ON!
Luckilly I know a thing or two about RS-232 comms so I noticed that pretty quick. I switched the handshaking off and it's working. Apparently the PV550 does not implement handshaking so it does not care whether it's on or off but PV600 does!
But wait I am not done!
After working with the system for a while I started again having
hickups in the communications. I figured out after a while that whenever you download either to the PV or to the Ultra5000 you need to switch the power off to both and then re-boot.
This has cost me 3 days of shear hell, I will stay away from AB's HMI's and drives as a result of this fiasco. I never had any issues with Emerson and they have an excellent tech support!
The question in my mind is this, AB is charging huge amounts of money for tech connect and really the only time I needed it in the past was because of AB's error's, bugs or anomalies as they call them.
I figure out what the problem is and on top of it I pay AB the tech connect fee. So I do the AB's de-bugging and I pay for the privilledge! LOL. They got it figured out.
In my many years of experience with AB's PLC's and other products I can honestly say that the level of support is going down.
Ultra5000 is a mess.
Ultra5000 manual has a lot to be desired. It lacks detailed info which you can get from the tech connect by e-mail. If you don't have tech connect you are screwed.
The HMI used is PV600.
In order to be able to de-bug and emulate the system I had obtained a demo from AB distributor. This is an AB made demo with PV550 and Ultra5000 as well as lights and switches wired to I/O.
I purchased a new UltraWare to do the programming. I reset the
Ultra5000 to factory settings to clear it up and proceeded to download the program created by the vendor. Then I installed
the pvserv.exe driver from the new UltraWare CD ROM. I installed
the PV 600 program into the PV550. UltraWare CD does not include any re-flash files to upgrade the Ultra5000 firmware.
I could not get the PV550 to communicate to the Ultra5000.
Well so I went and bought the PV600 so that I would have a precise match to what was being used in the field. I could not get it to communicate. Well it did kind of communicate, it showed the PV600 as being connected but the data was not getting through!
Contacted the Tech connect people. Got an app note on how to set it up. Followed it to the tee. Did not work! After numerous phone calls to tech connect and to the local AB office I was told actually by one guy in tech connect that I was argumentative.
wow. In my desperation I went back to the original demo setup
with PV550 knowing that this should work. Could not get it to work. After 3 days of exhaustive hacking at it I went to the AB's web site and was looking at knowledge base. I found a pvserv.exe driver there and after examining the file I noticed that it is about 2k smaller than the one I had. I downloaded it and installed it in the Ultra5000 and it worked right away with PV550. Wow. AB in their ultimate act of stupidity has decided to have a new pvserv.exe driver without doing any Rev control what so ever!!! In other words you now have a situation where different revisions of Ultra5000 firmware might or might not match the particular pvserv.exe driver! Is that stupid or what?
But wait I am not done!
I moved from the PV550 to the PV600 and it's not working??
Now what?
I am looking at the cables and I have noticed that there are only 3 pins needed 2-2, 3-3, 5-5 clearly no handshaking! Yet the genius who wrote the app. note on how to connect PV to the Ultra5000 said clearly to use the handshake ON!
Luckilly I know a thing or two about RS-232 comms so I noticed that pretty quick. I switched the handshaking off and it's working. Apparently the PV550 does not implement handshaking so it does not care whether it's on or off but PV600 does!
But wait I am not done!
After working with the system for a while I started again having
hickups in the communications. I figured out after a while that whenever you download either to the PV or to the Ultra5000 you need to switch the power off to both and then re-boot.
This has cost me 3 days of shear hell, I will stay away from AB's HMI's and drives as a result of this fiasco. I never had any issues with Emerson and they have an excellent tech support!
The question in my mind is this, AB is charging huge amounts of money for tech connect and really the only time I needed it in the past was because of AB's error's, bugs or anomalies as they call them.
I figure out what the problem is and on top of it I pay AB the tech connect fee. So I do the AB's de-bugging and I pay for the privilledge! LOL. They got it figured out.
In my many years of experience with AB's PLC's and other products I can honestly say that the level of support is going down.
Ultra5000 is a mess.
Ultra5000 manual has a lot to be desired. It lacks detailed info which you can get from the tech connect by e-mail. If you don't have tech connect you are screwed.