Siemens S7 software

Hello all, I am new to siemens s7 software but very proficient in all AB programming. I would like to know from someone who is proficient in siemens if the 'online' programming for ladder is really as bad as I have experienced or if I am doing something wrong.
-Should only 1 segment be displayed as 'online' at once? I click on a segment and wait a few seconds before I see the power flow and values of the data.
-Sometimes all the values of a segment are not displayed, and I am left creating a VAT table just to view that data for a rung.
-The VAT tables seems to suck a lot of memory and take a long time to open/read/write

If this is just the way the software works than I will have to live with it. Just hoping I was doing something wrong and it could be corrected.

When I started using siemens about a year ago I was disappointed by how slow the updates were when monitoring. We had a software specialist come in to help me set up some servos, and I asked him about it. He said it would be faster if I switched to profibus instead of MPI (because of the higher baud rate). I did that and didn't notice any difference. The next time he came I asked again, and he said the slow updates were normal when using the usb pc adapter, and that the pcmcia adapter allows a 12 meg baud rate, and there would be a significant improvement. We purchased one of those and again there was absolutely no difference. When clicking on a network, it takes approx 5 seconds for it to become "live".
In the last couple of weeks we have had 3 other people from siemens look into the problem...all tell me that this is *not* normal, but have yet to offer a solution that works. One of them even sent a copy of my program to his contact in Germany to check the configuration. They suggested I add the adapater to the network using netpro, and adjusting the communication resources in the hardware manager. None of these suggestions helped any.
Another guy said my laptop was too slow (it has a 1 Ghz processor). He brought 2
other laptops in to demonstrate, but the updating on those was slow as well.

Today our Omron rep, who used to work for Siemens, suggested I download a driver for the 5512 adapter from Siemens , instead of using the windows build in driver. I haven't got around to trying that yet.
Like you, I was fully prepared to live with the problem if someone would just tell me that this is normal..but everyone keeps telling me it isn't.

BTW, the machine I am working on right now is not the same as the one when I noticed the problem last year. The problem also exists on the s7-300 cpu demo unit I have at home. I have also updated Step 7 from 5.1 to 5.3.

Not what you want to hear...

I've always found Step7 to be slow and cumbersome. Much slower than Step5 ever was. I've never used ladder, so I can't comment but the time taken for a STL network to become 'live' is about the same as you say.
It's frustrating when Siemens say 'buy this' and 'configure that' when I can go online serially to an SLC or ControlLogix and get perfectly acceptable update times. I'm sure other manufacturers' offerings are comparable, too.
Us OEMs don't have the spare cash or inclination to buy the latest Siemens toys, and quite frankly don't think we should have to.

pp

I think that the delay that comes when you hit the "online" button and until the display updates depend on the S7 CPU, not (only) on the online hardware or baudrate.

The programming software sends a request to the CPU to send the values of interest. The CPU then have to setup a connection and transmit the data on that connection. I guess that it depends on the horsepower of the CPU and the number of connections it allready has to proces.

I use CP5511 or CP5611 with S7-400 at 1.5M on MPI.
My PCs are "normal" (sub 1 GHz).
The delay is between ½ and 2 seconds.
Once the online display starts to update it is very fast. VATs are extremely fast.

To lanmam:
I dont think you can get shorter delays by doing anything more than you allready have.

To yamangold:
What CPU do you have ?
What online connection do you have ? If you have a PC adapter (Serial to MPI converter) then that does account for the slow update times. Especially the oldest versions with only 19200 baud on the PC side should be thrown in the bin.

Hi Guys,
Interesting one this, Im currently using a pc adaptor to monitor etc , However various programmers ive come into contact with all use CP5511/12 PCMCIA Cards and although its seems slow to connect - Once a connection is established it seems significantly faster than the PC Adaptor.

Im due a CP5512 within the next fortnight, So ill let you know how i get on.

One Last thing my current laptop - a Dell C840 has a P4 2.4Ghz and 1GB of ram in preparation for WINCC Flexible and other memory hogging applications.

regards
Steve

Well it sounds like I am not alone, I dont understand how siemens has so much of the market with this kind of product. Our customer specifically requested siemens here, and I cant say that I could recommend it to anyone else at this point.

I am connecting to a 315C-2DP over ethernet. I am just using the build in enet port on my laptop and a CP343-1 in the rack. Initially I was using a serial cable over the MPI protocal and the ethernet seems to be faster than that, but not by much..

With the S7-300 series you have 187.5 kbaud serial datatransfer on the MPI port as well as the backplane.
Using an ethernet module in the backplane will not give you much faster updates because you still have to go via the same bottleneck.
Siemens has just announced a 315-2DP/PN with an onboard ethernet port. Maybe that will be faster than the ethernet module in the backplane.
(thinking aloud: It MUST be faster, because the "PN" means it should be good enough to run i/o on the ethernet port).

I cannot recommend the PC adapter anyhow.
There is a USB adapter that is significantly faster.

Originally posted by Jesper
It MUST be faster, because the "PN" means it should be good enough to run i/o on the ethernet port

Click to expand...

PN stands for 'ProfiNet' which is basically profibus over ethernet, we have profinet running over wireless ethernet here at Thamesport, it functions quite satisfactory. I haven't managed to get my hands on any of the modules for playing with yet... I, unfortunately, had nothing to do with the programing or installation of this equipment, so I can't comment much further on how it preforms or how it is to configure.

Paul