BeckHoff PLC and TwinCat

I still have a problem with two beckhoff PLC's . . .

I connected one of them to a laptop . . The Beckhoff was running Windows CE,
and I was able to change the IP address to the point that I was able to ping
the PLC from the laptop, but the PLC would not ping the laptop. Any ideas why?

I also tried to install TwinCat 2 on the laptop. It did not install right. I think
it failed to install two dll files. When I tried to run it, it first said 'AdsDll.dll
could not be found'. I found a file titled 'TCAdsdll.dll' and copied it to the
appropriate place, removed the 'TC' and tried again. This time it says
'Entry point AdsPort close could not be located' in Adsdll.dll'.

Any hints or suggestions for what I need to try next?
Poet.

Mad_Poet said:

The Beckhoff was running Windows CE,
and I was able to change the IP address to the point that I was able to ping
the PLC from the laptop, but the PLC would not ping the laptop. Any ideas why?

Click to expand...

If your laptop has Windows Firewall enabled, it may be blocking the ping requests.
https://www.faqforge.com/windows/windows-10/how-to-allow-ping-trough-the-firewall-in-windows-10/

Mad_Poet said:

I connected one of them to a laptop . . The Beckhoff was running Windows CE,
and I was able to change the IP address to the point that I was able to ping
the PLC from the laptop, but the PLC would not ping the laptop. Any ideas why?

Click to expand...

Does your laptop have a firewall that prevents it from being pinged?

Mad_Poet said:

I also tried to install TwinCat 2 on the laptop. It did not install right. I think
it failed to install two dll files. When I tried to run it, it first said 'AdsDll.dll
could not be found'. I found a file titled 'TCAdsdll.dll' and copied it to the
appropriate place, removed the 'TC' and tried again. This time it says
'Entry point AdsPort close could not be located' in Adsdll.dll'.

Any hints or suggestions for what I need to try next?
Poet.

Click to expand...

AdsDll.dll and TcAdsDll.dll are not interchangeable.

Check the directory C:\TwinCAT\Common64 for AdsDll.dll

Dear Guys,
The laptop is running XP . . . and has 'old' Rockwell software on it. It says the firewall
is turned off.

Prior to re-imaging the hard drive, I went looking for that AdsDll.dll . . . and there was no
such file on the laptop. (But it did find the TCAdsDll.dll - which is why I tried copying
and changing the name.)

I went and re-imaged the laptop with a ghost image of it from before I tried installing
TwinCat on it. I plan on seeing if Beckhoff will let me download that AdsDll.dll . . .
I don't see it on a Windows 7 PC, nor this Windows 10 PC I'm typing on. (Neither of which will have TwinCat installed on them.)

Any chance TwinCat requires Windows 7 minimum?

Poet.

What version of TwinCAT did you install? There are several versions. if your machine uses a 32 bit OS, then you want the TwinCAT 2.11 R3, which is the full version with a run-time included.

Also the ADS dll's are most likely part of the TC1000 ADS library:

https://www.beckhoff.com/english/download/tc3-download-xar.htm?id=1948695119487525

Dear Sirs,
I am trying to run Twincat V2.10.

After reading parts of the documentation, and studying the various error indications,
it looks like It's missing at least four files.

Error Parsing EtherCat descriptions! 'Beckhoff EL69.xml' (File Skipped.)

Two self registration errors - TcSMExt_EL6692_Slave.dll and TcSmIOLinkExtension.dll.

And that AdsDll.dll.

I also noticed, from reading the manual, that TwinCat replaces several Windows routines
to 'keep things alive in case of the blue screen of death'. Which suggests (to me) that
a computer running TwinCat might not play nice with Allen Bradley or Siemens or other
peoples softwares.

Worse yet, it's not like I absolutely must have Twincat working . . . the machine programs
are stored on a little SD type card . . and I have a spare. (With two bad PLCs I now have
two more SD cards.) I have the technology to save the programs and re-load the
programs on and off the cards. Machine parameters load via USB stick - no problem
there either.

But what I'd really like to be able to do is to 'talk' with the PLC and see if there isn't
something like a diagnostic which will tell me more about why they won't work.

I have two bad PLC's . . One will work about an hour, then loses contact with the I/O
modules (according to the machine diagnostics). The other has no access to the I/O
modules. (Both will run a little Windows CE on one of the SD cards - includes
NotePad but no TwinCat programming.)

The PLC's are CX1020-0111 and we got them in 2008.

How can I tell if I need TwinCat 2? Or TwinCat 3?
Poet.

Mad_Poet said:

Dear Sirs,
I also noticed, from reading the manual, that TwinCat replaces several Windows routines
to 'keep things alive in case of the blue screen of death'. Which suggests (to me) that
a computer running TwinCat might not play nice with Allen Bradley or Siemens or other
peoples softwares.

Click to expand...

I would say this is not going to be a problem most of the time. I currently have installed and working on my Win10laptop TwinCAT2, TwinCAT3, Codesys, RSLogix500, and RSLogix500. And all work with no issues.

Mad_Poet said:

Worse yet, it's not like I absolutely must have Twincat working . . . the machine programs
are stored on a little SD type card . . and I have a spare. (With two bad PLCs I now have
two more SD cards.) I have the technology to save the programs and re-load the
programs on and off the cards. Machine parameters load via USB stick - no problem
there either.

But what I'd really like to be able to do is to 'talk' with the PLC and see if there isn't
something like a diagnostic which will tell me more about why they won't work.

I have two bad PLC's . . One will work about an hour, then loses contact with the I/O
modules (according to the machine diagnostics). The other has no access to the I/O
modules. (Both will run a little Windows CE on one of the SD cards - includes
NotePad but no TwinCat programming.)

The PLC's are CX1020-0111 and we got them in 2008.

How can I tell if I need TwinCat 2? Or TwinCat 3?
Poet.

Click to expand...

Based on it being installed in 2008, I would give it a 99% chance that it is TwinCAT2.

You may want to see if this video provides any insight:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T171NIyH74

Dear Archie,
Many thanks for the link to the video.
While much of the stuff in the video did not 'work right' . . . it gave me a few clues.

I went with static IP - and, fortunately, with the Win-CE card in the PLC I was
able to set its IP address. I used addresses in the 162.254.12.xx area. On the
PLC, I went to the Control Panel, CX Configuration, Miscellaneous tab, and
under TCP/IP settings I turned on the IP routing. After that I could ping from the computer to the PLC and the PLC to the computer.

And in the System manager, 'Choose target system' - etc. etc. etc. it found both
the PLC and the computer.

If the rest of this TwinCat2 version 2.10 was all there I might even be in business.

But at least I'm making progress.

Many Thanks again. Next step will be to try downloading TwinCat 2 again . . .
(And see if I can find an IP address for the machines in their normal configurations.)
Poet.

Weyall . . .
I got that TwinCat 2.11 R3. Installed and runs without errors. Did not come with
pdf instruction files . . . Though I did have two from the last time.

The PLC with Windows CE - I was able to communicate with it.

The other PLC, running the machines program . . . I am not able to communicate with
it. It says it has an IP of 172.16.90.146 . . but it will not ping. There is another
block that says 'DHCP' with a setting of 'Yes' - any chance this means the program
is expecting a DHCP Server to provide it with an address?

And, is it possible that the vendor 'disabled' the ethernet ports within their software
just to keep people like me out of it?

Anyway, I now need to spend some time reading the pdf files. Almost time to go
home and start my weekend.
Poet.

With something I have not connected before I like to set the controller to DHCP and set my laptop to DHCP. Then connect the 2 and wait about 3 minutes for both of them to get a default IP address which should be 169.x.x.x, then you should be able to broadcast search and find the PLC.

I doubt the vender disabled the port, but if they did you should be able to plug in a mouse and monitor and use the CE desktop to enable it.

Mad_Poet said:

Weyall . . .
It says it has an IP of 172.16.90.146 . . but it will not ping. There is another
block that says 'DHCP' with a setting of 'Yes' - any chance this means the program
is expecting a DHCP Server to provide it with an address?

Click to expand...

In my experience , especially in TwinCAT2 , if you know the IP of PLC, simply use static IP address instead of DHCP. In your case, set an IP in your laptop with following rang : 172.16.x.x and set Subnet to 255.255.0.0.

If it doesn't work ,check the firewall , reload your network adapter (Enable/disable) or even reload your TwinCAT in config mode and then start choose target procedure again.

If you are not sure about the IP , as Archi said , use DHCP.

Sorry, a bit late. If you haven't fixed the Ethernet link:
What does "It says it has an IP of 172.16.90.146" mean?
Did you connect a monitor & keyboard to the CX1020 and view the network card settings in Windows? If so, that should be correct. If just a label on the side, the IP might have been changed. I recall that Beckhoff CX's ship from the factory w/ an IP like "172. ". We generally change to a "192.168. " address to match our isolated-network PC's. Being able to ping both ways is step 1.

Re the TwinCAT version to use, Beckhoff usually recommends trying to match the version on your development PC to that on the CX. I have never had a problem and even programmed old CX1020's w/ TwinCAT2 using the latest TC2 64-bit on a Win 7 Pro 64-bit development PC. I did have glitches installing the later, mostly due to certificate issues that are unique to Win7 64-bit and Microsoft fixed in Win 10.

One thing to avoid is Beckhoff's utility that lets you protect the solid-state drive. It is about the only Windows app that ships on a C1020, so people open it, click a few cryptic buttons, think "didn't do anything", close it and forget about it. That was me. What happened is I inadvertently set so you can't change the SSD. You think you are writing things to the hard drive, but just a temp buffer. After a reboot, whatever was on the hard drive before you set the lock comes up. It is actually a low-level Microsoft feature of Windows embedded, which you can enter in the DOS command window. I kept finding my Beckhoff I/O configuration messed up a year later (ex. after a power outage) and thought it was a software version conflict of such. Of course, one you setup the PLC and don't want anybody changing it, you can set the lock. Then, the graveyard shift can just do a hard reboot to restore the baseline rather than call you at 3 am.

Rocket Tester > What does "It says it has an IP of 172.16.90.146" mean?

Dear Mr. Rocket Tester,
I have two different 'flavors' of SSD cards. One is for when the machine is running the
program that makes it 'stack stuff'. The other has Windows CE on it. The machine
program apparently does not have CE (or at least not enough to actually do anything)
on it.

The machine program SSD, when running, has an IP address . . . .
Deep within the parameters and menus of the machine. But I can't get things
set up to ping either way with it. Nor could I 'auto-set' an address.

The Windows CE SSD - I can access the control panel and set an IP address from there,
ping back and forth, and I'm confident I could write and load a program. (With much
time learning how to actually do such.)

Things are a bit busy with me at work . . Memorial Day weekend and tomorrow I get
to go to North Carolina to work on a machine called a 'pile turner'.
Poet.

If the operating SSD uses normal Beckhoff TwinCAT 2, it surely has Windows of some flavor and an IP address that is set in Windows. Perhaps you can't see Windows because they set some low-level user lockout (I have no knowledge). It is also possible the OEM is using the CX as a generic "Intel PC" and loaded a custom real-time OS like QNX, but unlikely since they would need a method to interact w/ EtherCAT to address I/O modules. TwinCAT is a form of CodeSys, which is common in Europe, so you might search those forums.

There might be a hacker utility you can run on your HMI PC to find the IP address of the CX by repeated polling in ethernet. Another approach might be to connect the "operating SSD" as an additional hard-drive in another PC (don't boot from it) and browse the files. Hackers probably know which folder/file (or registry entries) where Windows stores the IP address and perhaps have tools to view.