VFD PowerFlex Ethernet Issue

Hi everyone I have a PowerFlex 70 EC which for some reason keeps disconnecting from the PLC, like every 2 minutes, is controlled with an Ethernet card and connected to a subnet where all Point I/O's are connected, any idea on why it is doing that? I've already try to change the port connection to the switch , the ethernet cable and even the Ethernet module, but seems that nothing change.

Thanks in advance.

JIVM1127 said:

Hi everyone I have a PowerFlex 70 EC which for some reason keeps disconnecting from the PLC, like every 2 minutes, is controlled with an Ethernet card and connected to a subnet where all Point I/O's are connected, any idea on why it is doing that? I've already try to change the port connection to the switch , the ethernet cable and even the Ethernet module, but seems that nothing change.

Thanks in advance.

Click to expand...

If your switch is capable of IGMP snooping, turn that on. The I/O is done with a broadcast, from what I read. When all of the I/O reports at the same time .. or about the same time .. it can confuse/overload ethernet ports that don't have the buffer capacity and CPU available to process the broadcasts, then toss them in the bit bucket as useless.

I would guess that your point I/O is sending a message every 2 minutes to let everyone know it's still there. And all of the Point I/O likely does it at about the same time.

We have Rice Lake scale heads that do the same type of thing. 200 broadcast messages, each, per second. Plus the I/O messages from the PLC's 1756-ENBT. It killed every other ethernet device on that subnet until we turned on IGMP snooping on the Cisco 2955 (old). We had already removed everything else from that switch, and effectively isolated that switch, before we found the IGMP thing.

like every 2 minutes

Click to expand...

Use a logic trap or Wireshark to determine if this is happening exactly every 2 minutes, or if that's just the approximate time.

A precise time suggests a configuration problem with a device on the network.

The other troubleshooting questions I would ask are:

1. Does the drive fault ? If so, what is the fault code ?
2. Do you have managed switches, and if so, what kind and how are they configured ?
3. Has this system ever run correctly, or are you commissioning it for the first time ?

If it happens to be a general connection timeout issue then the following troubleshooting list might help...

702692 - Causes / Troubleshooting16#203 Error on PowerFlex / SMC Products
Access Level: Everyone

The good advice on enabling IGMP is in there among other things.

Regards,
George

Hopefully you have a managed switch...

Thank you so much for all the answers, I got to say that Im not really related to the IGMP snooping term, but Im going to look for that, and run some test tomorrow.

The other troubleshooting questions I would ask are:

1. Does the drive fault ? If so, what is the fault code ?
2. Do you have managed switches, and if so, what kind and how are they configured ?
3. Has this system ever run correctly, or are you commissioning it for the first time ?

Click to expand...

1. The drive faul is always "DPI 5 Port" which I think refers to the ethernet module.
2. I have never managed switches, in fact as far as Im concerned we just connect them without doing nothing... But I can remember that is the only Stratix 2000 1783-US05T that we have in the plant all the other switches are Phoenix, I will look deeper into this, I really didnt know about all of this.
3. We just want to include the VFD into the HMI due a change in the process, and since in a simulator we have tested the Ethernet cable/module and runs perfectly so it makes sense that the switch could be responsible.

If it happens to be a general connection timeout issue then the following troubleshooting list might help...

702692 - Causes / Troubleshooting16#203 Error on PowerFlex / SMC Products
Access Level: Everyone

The good advice on enabling IGMP is in there among other things.

Click to expand...

I will look for all your recommendations and tomorrow I update the Thread,

thank you all!

Just to update the thread: Since we dont have a manageable switch we try with the RPI as marked in:

702692 - Causes / Troubleshooting16#203 Error on PowerFlex / SMC Products
Access Level: Everyone

Click to expand...

But I have to say that before posting this thread we try to changed but to 200ms, and seem to make nothing, but why then with 10ms worked perfectly, my logic led me to believe that if I make this number greater the traffic in the net will decrease since the PLC its not checking that often for whatever its connected to it, am I right? or its just in the opposite way?

JIVM1127 said:

Just to update the thread: Since we dont have a manageable switch we try with the RPI as marked in:


But I have to say that before posting this thread we try to changed but to 200ms, and seem to make nothing, but why then with 10ms worked perfectly, my logic led me to believe that if I make this number greater the traffic in the net will decrease since the PLC its not checking that often for whatever its connected to it, am I right? or its just in the opposite way?

Click to expand...

If reducing the RPI worked .. perhaps a timeout that you can`t increase is set lower than 200 ms

Your logic is correct. The higher the number, the less often the messages are sent, decreasing the net traffic.

Thanks a lot!