AB 1784-KPTX issues

This is my first post after trolling you guys for some time.

Equipment
PLC5/40E

My issue:
OEM is pushing me for expensive upgrade for just a new PC. I cannot justify that Expense for what I'm getting in return.

The old P2 computer/WINNT was connected to pic via 1784KTS. OEM for equipment used Bluewater WinRT as driver file. With setting IRQ10 --C8 Memory allocation.

I have updated new PC with passive backplane both 16 bitISA and PCI slots and looks like 33MHZ on isa. P4 processor was able to reload WINNT and run OEM's application. The equipment is a scanner utilizing laser heads and light curtains that I have operational, but have not been able to communicate to plc.

I gave up on the kts card and upgraded to 1784PKTX. Using Pktxd the card is showing up in DOS with new mem and interrupt settings. The WinRT diver shows up when windows loads, but I am unable to identify card with pktxd in winnt mode. Do not see any memory or Irq conflict. Looks like OEM is using WinRT as pipeline to pic data.

OEM did not use Rslinx to communicate with plc. Looks like they had it setup to DH+ to pull info into pic.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

Maybe worth installing RS-Linx to set up the PKTX driver and look for any devices on the DH+ channel. If visible, that would validate your hardware and point to a problem in the application driver.

So the OEM software uses a 3rd party driver from Bluewater.
I have located a forum thread about this. It is for Citect which seems to also use WinRT.
http://proscada.ru/ctkbase.en/articles/q4849.html
There are some info on this webpage how to check and reinstall the WinRT part.
But apart from that there is scant to find on the entire internet about Bluewater WinRT. Not a good sign.

If you do have to accept the upgrade via the vendor, I suggest you try to go for an ethernet based solution, not DH+.

If it is not a very special HMI application, and you have the PLC program with good documentation, you could ask for bids from alternative suppliers.

Good advice Jesper...with the 5/40e think I have the option to go Ethernet and just get away from another piece of hardware.

I'll follow back up and let you guys know how it worked.

Thanks for the response guys.

Follow up

Upgraded the pic to winxp. Found out that my bus speeds on upgraded computer were too high. 33mhz is the limit for KTX style card. Installed the 1784 PKTX card device driver loaded and identified memory ranges. Now I've got an issue where the memory range the card is using 00E2000 is out of range for the WinRT driver it apparently only works in 0x$&@ ranges.

RSLinx picks up the device but so far have been unable to load that specific memory range.

Man this has been some kind of rabbit hole.

Go back to OEM start down the path to connect via Ethernet to PLC5/40E. Link up IP address select plc5 enet through pc. Nodda! OEM claims the logic was written in multiplex and should be rewritten for block transfer.

There are several sources of data being transferred encoder, laser, and light curtain.

Any thoughts?

Have you tried the serial port?

Follow up
Found that a 1784 KTX would work with a processor under 500mhz. Found the right CPU loaded the card up. Winnt diagnostics recognized the card. Back in business.
Thanks guys for the help.

Hub639 said:

OEM claims the logic was written in multiplex and should be rewritten for block transfer.

Click to expand...

This sounds as if the HMI is connected via RIO, rather than DH+.

The block transfers are probably acessing some other tags in the PLC (the "real" tags used by the PLC program) before sending or reading the tags setup for the block transfer to/from the HMI.
With a bit of effort, you could probably go the ethernet route anyway. But then your HMI should access the original tags in the PLC, in stead of the block transfer tags.

Jasper It is RIO.
Long term I think it would be best to get away from old hardware.
My learning curve with this has been steep.
Thanks for the support.

I agree with JesperMP you may want to look at migrating away from the existing HMI na dave a new system build. There are alot of folks around that can do that migration for you. I am not aware of any feature that can be done over RIO that can't be done over Ethernet.

I have been wrong before just ask my wife.