1747-UIC, DH+, RSView, SLC, Tags

[gareth.cantrill]

My company has recently brought a new laptop for me without a serial port.

I have purchased a USB to DH485 Interface Converter to try and use as the missing port. Recommended by Rockwell.

I cannot seem to set it up to work in the desired way.

What the aim of this all is, is to gain access to the tags within an SLC 5/04 via RSView studio & serial.

I can connect to the processor via DH+, but I have very little experience in this area, and i'm not sure how I could access the tags via DH+.

The question now being, can anyone tell me how to either setup the 1747-UIC to act as a RS232 device or can anyone tell me how I can access the PLC tags via DH+ and view them in RSView.

A very scetchy description I know, but I'm doing my best.

[Ken Moore]

The SLC isn't going to have any "TAGS", just memory locations. ie N7:10, B3:0/1 etc..

The Tag database will be within RSView,
each "TAG" will be associated with a plc memory location.

[gareth.cantrill]

Okay. I understand what your saying. I didnt word my post correctly.

Since the post I have managed to get the device almost working. It is acting in the way I want it too. I have setup my communication in RSView to use DF1. I have then setup a topic and pointed it at the processor.

When I now go to connections of a item (say string display) in RSVIew and refresh the folder I get a new folder which is my topic, with two sub folders (Diagnostics & Online) but it isnt displaying the registers in the processor.

So im almost there but not quite. Can you perhaps tell me why they are not displayed???

[JesperMP]

I guess that it is possible to get the 1747-UIC to function as a regular USB/serial converter.

But why not go get a real regular USB/serial converter. The one I got only cost me around 20 EUROs. Works fine with DF1.

edit: Oh, your second post seems to indicate that you have gotten past the problem of getting the UIC to work with DF1.
Are you sure that the UIC is really online with the SLC5/04 ?
Can you go online with RSLogix ?

[gareth.cantrill]

No it would appear not. I am new to PLCs so please ignore my ignorance.

I have seen what I am attempting setup before over serial, so on writing my last post, I saw something familiar and I thought Id cracked it.

I can be far away, but I cannot get online.

As for your converter question, whenever I spoke to any of our AB integrators, they were unsure of what to suggest. They said most wouldnt work, but they had had some success with the UIC

[JesperMP]

but I cannot get online

I take that you mean that you cannot go online via RSLogix.
In that case you cannot get online with the topic configuration either. Not sure to how get it to work, I dont have a UIC myself.

They said most [USB/serial adapters] wouldnt work

They will work. DF1 will work with allmost ANYTHING. But DH485 will only work with a PIC, a UIC, a PCMK, or a PKTX.
Only problem may be that "autoconfigure" will not work (it does work with my USB/serial converter though). So you may have to set the DF1 parameters manually.

[Ron Beaufort]

Greetings Gareth,

just a quick suggestion ... try breaking your problem into manageable pieces ...

part 1 ... confirm that you can communicate over DH+ between SLC-5/04 and RSView ...

put a simple numeric display (example: ##) on an RSView screen ... call the tag “PLC_seconds” ... set it up for an analog format ... address the tag to location S:42 in the SLC-5/04 ... this is the PLC’s real-time clock “seconds” reading ... when you run the application, the number on your display should change each second ... and it should range in value from 0 through 59 ... this will confirm that you have successfully set up your communications ...

once you’ve got that piece working, then you’re ready to start looking at things like strings, etc. ...

also ... you probably want to set this application up to communicate on DH+ ... the fastest baud you can push through the processor’s serial port is 19,200 ... if you’re moving a significant number of “strings” – and doing it fairly often – then you might run into a bottleneck ... survival tip: it’s no harder to address the PLC data over DH+ than over the serial channel ...

I’m not sure that I understand exactly what you’re trying to do with the 1747-UIC ... but based on what I THINK you’re trying to set up, the RSLinx driver needs to be set up for “DF1” ... but the Channel 0 port in the SLC-5/04 PROBABLY needs to be set up for DH-485 ... try that setup ... you might get lucky ... if it works, I’ll be glad to explain it later if you really want to know ...