Hello all,
I'm a long time reader, and first time poster. Yes, my butt is really in a crack right now
.
The situation is this: I have a customer that has one of our old oven systems (Industrial) that is about 5 years old. The controls are all Modicon PLC's with Modbus + for the comms network. I am an AB baby and know nothing much about these systems. Unfortunately, neither do the engineers who originally programmed it any more. This is a problem.
The problem we're seeing is a communication issue between one of the PLC's and the HMI (which is a Panelview plus 3000). The way is shows up is that the belt speed will show up on the HMI, but nothing else. No temp readouts, no fan speeds, nothing. The communication lights on the front of the processor are blinking continuously as normal. The other PLC is working as it should. The customer is very savvy with this equipment (a LOT more than I am, which isn't really that difficult come to think of it), and had already tried a couple of new processors etc. when I got there. I got with my boss and an ancient laptop and got a program to load on the processor after a protracted struggle and sent that to the customer. No joy.
My only thought right now would be to change out the HMI, but what has stopped me from that is if you change the PLC addresses, the infeed box will change places on the screen with the discharge box (which is the one that isn't working). Not knowing how the equipment works is really crippling me.
Guys, any advice you can give me would be greatly appreciated. Also, any links to info/books I could buy on this stuff would be great as well. I have been googling like a madman getting whatever I can, but I'm hoping you guys have more links than I've been able to find. We have appoximately 200 installations like this, and they are going to start showing their age here pretty quickly I think.
Regards,
Mark
I'm a long time reader, and first time poster. Yes, my butt is really in a crack right now
.The situation is this: I have a customer that has one of our old oven systems (Industrial) that is about 5 years old. The controls are all Modicon PLC's with Modbus + for the comms network. I am an AB baby and know nothing much about these systems. Unfortunately, neither do the engineers who originally programmed it any more. This is a problem.
The problem we're seeing is a communication issue between one of the PLC's and the HMI (which is a Panelview plus 3000). The way is shows up is that the belt speed will show up on the HMI, but nothing else. No temp readouts, no fan speeds, nothing. The communication lights on the front of the processor are blinking continuously as normal. The other PLC is working as it should. The customer is very savvy with this equipment (a LOT more than I am, which isn't really that difficult come to think of it), and had already tried a couple of new processors etc. when I got there. I got with my boss and an ancient laptop and got a program to load on the processor after a protracted struggle and sent that to the customer. No joy.
My only thought right now would be to change out the HMI, but what has stopped me from that is if you change the PLC addresses, the infeed box will change places on the screen with the discharge box (which is the one that isn't working). Not knowing how the equipment works is really crippling me.
Guys, any advice you can give me would be greatly appreciated. Also, any links to info/books I could buy on this stuff would be great as well. I have been googling like a madman getting whatever I can, but I'm hoping you guys have more links than I've been able to find. We have appoximately 200 installations like this, and they are going to start showing their age here pretty quickly I think.
Regards,
Mark
