B&R plc to B&R industrial computer. Could use some help...

A client of mine has asked for assistance. They have a Jenbacher generator which uses a B&R 2003 plc. This appears to communicate with a B&R industrial pc via an OAC808 - or that's my current hypothesis.

Currently when the client's generator experiences an alarm it sends the alarm data to a site in Austria (I'm assuming this is what the industrial pc is for), and this alarm is then forwarded to the clients - or so the story goes. However, this system has many glitches.
Sometimes the plant personnel don't receive an alarm for days. At other times multiple alarms get hung up for an extended period of time, and then appear all at one on the client's phones.

What they'd like me to do is to tie the B&R alarms into their Win911 system, which is tied to their other plcs (Allen Bradley). My current plan is to send the data files to one of Allen Bradley's, that's currently configured in Win911, and then simply expand the alarm table.
Perhaps I could use the industrial pc for this purpose?

I'm still at the planning stage and would happily listen to any advice. I'm guessing I need Automation 4 software, but am not sure about the cable (hoping that a regular cat 5 cable should work)...



Quick update: I sent off an email to [email protected] asking for help, and just received notification that the email wasn't delivered because "Recipient address rejected: User unknown."

lol...

Hello,
why you don't just try and contact B&R via their homepage (It would not come to my mind to send an email to [email protected]where ??, specially for technical details.).

http://www.br-automation.com/en/company/contact/.

Are you sure about the B&R 2003 PLC, because this is a rather old system and it was not widely used with Ethernet (but possible).

Anyhow, I think you need Information from Jenbacher - you need to have access to the alarming information.

Or you try to find out e.g. with PLTrend where the information is hold.

Two different approaches I see:

a) you modify the PLC program of Jenbacher (which I think they will maybe not allow)
b) hook up on any information that is representing the alarm info.

for a) you need Automation Studio, but I doubt it is 4.x, most likely some 3.x

for b) you need an application that is accessing the alarming information via PVI and than forward this alarming information to an other system (Win911)

You can take a look at PLTrend, it can access the alarming information and display. You need a program that is accessing the alarming information and than forwarding it via protocol to an other system.

PVI is the communication platform which is used to access B&R PLC (SG3, SG4, ...). It can be used as serial link, ethernet link and so on. You need a key for it otherwise communication locks after 2 hours. B&R IPC dont need a key .

Hope this information helps you figure out your project.
BR
bb

Contact me

Hi, you can contact me about this, I think I can help you

[email protected]

How old is this thing? For it to have 2003 stuff on it, you're looking at maybe 10 years old and written using Automation Studio 2.X (if you're lucky, newer than version 2.4). If you need to get into the old PLC program, you will first need the source code from Jenbacher (or maybe B&R, if they did the code for Jenbacher). I really don't recommend trying to get into changing the PLC code unless you absolutely have to.

The APC side of things should be Windows using PVI or OPC to get the alarm data from the PLC and then do whatever with it. Your best bet is to simply re-write the Windows program instead of touching the PLC at all. You can get PVI .Net for free from the B&R website's download section (Software -> Automation Net/PVI) and Visual Studio C# Express 2010 for free from Microsoft if you don't have a full Visual Studio license. PVI .Net allows you to pull up the alarm data without needing to do anything with the PLC. You can even get training manuals on how to use PVI .Net from B&R (I want to say it is TM720, but I'm honestly pulling that number out of thin air). I'm sure you can also get Win911 C# libraries or whatever instead of trying to piggyback on a random AB PLC.

If you're lucky, you could get the source code for the Windows program from Jenbacher, but if it has their alarm server connection info in there, I highly doubt they would pass it along.

EDIT: Just call B&R's Atlanta office if their Austrian support email isn't working: +1.770.772.0400, but you really should be contacting Jenbacher.