Help! Unity Pro Vers. 8.0 Network Status Communications (Wonderware DAServer)

EricLogix

Member
Join Date
Mar 2015
Location
Houston
Posts
3
Hello all,

I am developing HMI screens for a Wastewater Treatment Plant which is using Modicon M580 PLCs that are running Unity Pro XL version 8.0. In Wonderware, I am creating a Network Status Screen which will display the overview of the network and alert the operator when a communication failure has occurred. I was wondering if anyone experienced with Unity Pro knows of a communication system bit or has any advice for communicating through the DAServer to determine a Comm. Failure has occurred. The network is currently through standard ethernet/TCPIP and there are 4 Panels that will need to be monitored. I have created a heartbeat block on each PLC which sends a pulse every 3 sec to the DA server. However, I am not sure how the other M580 PLCs on the network can access this pulse value when the DA Server is down?

Thank for any and all advice!
 
Does it matter to each PLC if others in the system are down? If so they must be passing data already. In which case you probably have an IO scanner or some other mechanism set up. These typically have health bits which are automatically set by the communications service.

What i normally like to do for a comms monitoring routine is increment a counter in the PLC. A script running in Intouch resets this when the value gets to say, 60 seconds. If the counter goes above 60 for more than a few seconds then the PLC knows the SCADA server is not running. If the counter does not get to 60 within 65 seconds, then Intouch knows the PLC is down.

Same mechanism could be used for each PLC.
 
I like the method you are suggesting with the counter scripting in Intouch. I mainly wanted each PLC to have a status of the other PLCs on the network to help with troubleshooting in the unlikely event that the DAserver was down or failed at the same time. Unfortunately, this network is not using an NOE card so there I am unable to utilize a IOScanner. Anywars thanks for your help I will give it a try!
 
M580 should support IOScanner natively on the processor port. It's been a year since I touched one of those, but I didn't have trouble doing it from what I recall. What CPU part number do you have?

Does M580 even have an NOE option? I thought these were all NOCs now for the new platform?
 

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