Converting S5 projects to S7-300

Hello,

I am working on a project,in which a conversion from s5 to s7-300 is necessary.
In our factory, a quite old system is working for years.An s5 plc is working in the system , but i need to replace that plc with an s7-300 CPU 315-2dp.

First , i have tried not to use the converter program provided with Simatic Manager and do the conversion myself. Not long after, i realized that it is nearly impossible to do it this way and decided to use the converter.

Anyway, the software warns me about something before starting the conversion. In 6 blocks a '*' appears indicating that blocks are not going to be converted correctly. Those blocks are generally special function blocks. and whenever those blocks are called from the program, an error occurs.

The converter produces an .awl file anyway. In that .awl file , also the errors are written . After inserting the .awl file into Simatic Manager project as an external source, i compile the stl code. Because of errors given by the compiler, no blocks are created in Simatic Manager.

My main problem is that i am not so good in STL and i haven't got any experience with S5 PLC's.I'm not so good at s7-300 STL language and special FB's ,too.
Therefore, i need detailed manuals about programming S5 plc's and about that conversion process i have been talking about.

Has anybody tried this kind of conversions before? What kind of problems have you come-across? How did you solve them? Can you advise me documents about this issues? Where can i find detailed info about s5/s7 programming? How can i find out which special Function Block in S5 does what and which FB in S7 can be used instead? Do you have any manuals about STL language in both s5 and s7 and about differences between them? To sum up, how can i finish this damn project by the end of May?

PS: *I think writing the program once more for s7, not losing time with conversions; but my director insists on following that way.
* I hate 6 Sigma!!!

Here's a link to the Siemens web site that allows you to search for the Step 5 CPU manuals.

http://support.automation.siemens.com/WW/llisapi.dll?query=CPU+922%2FCPU928%2FCPU+928B%2FCPU+948&func=cslib.cssearch&content=skm%2Fmain.asp&lang=en&siteid=cseus&objaction=cssearch&searchinprim=&nodeid99=&x=35&y=12

Which Step 5 CPU are you converting from ?

one of the biggest problems is about FB168. This special FB is used to read counter module for positioning.

FB 168 (STEU.POS) Control function block for ”positioning” mode
Functional Description
The control function block first checks to make sure that the DB has the correct identifier in DL 23
and that the channel was configured for ”positioning” mode. Then, depending on the parameters
with which the FB was initialized, specific data areas are forwarded from the data block to
the IP or read out from the IP and updated in the data block

Click to expand...

This block is only called from several PB's to read the value. I don't understand how i can do that in s7..

Maybe a VIPA PLC is something for you?

what step 7 h/w are you using instead of the step 5 counter module ?

i am using FM350 1 channel counter card,

and i dont even know what a vipa plc is

Hello emokar;

Specialized functions, linked to dedicated hardware, are not the same in S5 and S7. Since the counter module of S5 is very different from its S7 counterpart, you can understand that it will not translate. This will be true of most function modules (HSC, positionning, PID, motion cards).
What you must do is remove FB 168 from the S5 program before you convert, and in Step 7 reprogram the FM350-1 from scratch. The followng link will take you to manuals and Getting Started FAQs for this module, with programming examples.
http://support.automation.siemens.com/WW/llisapi.dll?query=FM350-1+manual&func=cslib.cssearch&content=skm%2Fmain.asp&lang=en&siteid=cseus&objaction=cssearch&searchinprim=0&nodeid0=4000024
Hope this helps,
Daniel Chartier

it shouldn't be so hard to re-program the parts related with the counter module. but i can't understand how it is used in s5 plc. i mean the special function block fb 168 is called from several funncitons of the program, but it doesn't even exist itself. I guess whenever fb 168 is called, the counted value is written to the accumulator. Am i right?

Hey,

www.support.automation.siemens.com and search for S5 FB168. This will get u enough information to figure out how this FB is being used.

In the 5 mins it took me to look for it I can say it would be somthing like SFC58 & SFC59 Read and Write of data-records to FM-module.

It will probably read and write data from the positioner and store in a DB.

Greetz
Jeebs