AB plc desktop links for multiple plcs online

Hello, new member to this site.

My current job requires troubleshooting on 20 different plc's. We also have to use our own laptops so there is no dedicated laptop always logged in to all 20 plcs for easy access. I'm trying to figure out if there is a way to create a desktop icon for each plc to be able to go online. This would include the communications path and the file path. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Our laptops are not the fastest and we are out in the plant with dirty hands and gloves on so having an easy click icon would be awesome.

Thanks

We have 100's of PLC's in our plant and the easiest way for us to keep up with the controller path and program is to have an excel sheet with all the IP's of everything grouped by vendor\line\area etc. and then group our programs on a file share by Vendor\Area\HMI\PLC\etc.

HMI programs are a whole different story. If its a simple change we usually just do it on the engineering station. The way we do that is to have a master engineering station that contains/runs all the HMI programs. If you need to make changes you go to that machine, make a backup transfer it to your machine, make the changes, test and when everything is good transfer the new program back to the engineering station and update its HMI program to the one you just updated.


Then once you have the excel sheet setup and the file share setup go online with every PLC and save a copy to the file share folder. Then once you have the most recent programs on the file share, copy the whole folder with all the programs to another folder out of that folder tree.(This is just a backup in case someone deletes the folder that your most recent programs are saved in.)

Then make a PM in your maintenance systems that reminds you to go in and make backups of all the programs every so often. If you don't have a PM system you can setup a recurring meeting in your outlook calendar to remind you to backup everything every so often. Just remember to copy your whole folder out to the backup location each time you backup all the PLC's.

Once you have the IP's and file shares sorted out, send links to the other 20 guys that are going to be working on this stuff so everyone knows where to get the latest programs and IP's.

There's also a program that AB has that will go out and do this stuff for you automagically, we played around with it a few years ago and it didn't work that well.

I am assuming this is for RS Logix 5000. If something is different for RS Logix 500 or RS Logix 5, someone else should jump in. The file extension for RS Logix 5000 is .ACD, Logix 500 is .RSS, and RS Logix 5 is .RSP

I believe the path to the PLC gets stored in the .ACD file. Once you've established a connection online in RS Logix, then save, the path to the PLC gets stored in the ACD file.

So you simply need to go online with each PLC from one computer, save each file, then copy all 20 .ACD files to each computer, and you can place a shortcut to each file on the desktop. If anyone changes the PLC program, and then someone else tries to go online, it will detect a difference and prompt you what to do. You should choose "Upload", save the file, then do whatever you need.

sigmadelta said:

I am assuming this is for RS Logix 5000. If something is different for RS Logix 500 or RS Logix 5, someone else should jump in. The file extension for RS Logix 5000 is .ACD, Logix 500 is .RSS, and RS Logix 5 is .RSP

I believe the path to the PLC gets stored in the .ACD file. Once you've established a connection online in RS Logix, then save, the path to the PLC gets stored in the ACD file.

So you simply need to go online with each PLC from one computer, save each file, then copy all 20 .ACD files to each computer, and you can place a shortcut to each file on the desktop. If anyone changes the PLC program, and then someone else tries to go online, it will detect a difference and prompt you what to do. You should choose "Upload", save the file, then do whatever you need.

Click to expand...

Yeah, everyone else's rslinx shortcuts would need to be the same as what they were on the PC that he saved them on. You can export rslinx configurations though, so that would need to be done as well. If not then they would have to go select the device in their rslinx tree which defeats the purpose and then if they saved over it then the next guy would have to do the same thing as well.

If the files are all saved in one common location like a shared drive then yes, the RSLinx configs would need to match. Otherwise the files are saved using someone else's RSLinx path. Since everyone is using their own PCs that may not go over well.

If everyone has the files stored locally (I hope not) then the OP would need to go online with each PLC and save the project as sigmadelta suggests. The path would indeed be saved with the offline file for PLC-5, SLC 500, and Logix 5000.

OG

Wow thanks guys, I really appreciate all the support. I was able to save links for the LOGIX 5000 files and they are working fine. This is huge and will be a great help. I can't seem to get the LOGIX 5 files to work. I'm trying to mess with the export RS linx configurations but not having any luck. We only have LOGIX 5 and LOGIX 5000 plc's. We seem to have skipped right over SLC 5's all together.