Atlas Copco Combox-E Communications

[tirwinii]

Does anyone have some sample code for communicating with an Atlas Copco Combox-E via a ControlLogix PLC? A friend of mine at a plant in Louisiana has to do this for five new air compressors their company bought and I am trying to help him.

Thanks in advance,

Terry

 

[cshorter]

Me too

tirwinii,

I'll post here once I've figured it out, but I'm just starting today. Have you had any luck in the month since you posted?

Thanks,

Chris

 

[leitmotif]

Does anyone have some sample code for communicating with an Atlas Copco Combox-E via a ControlLogix PLC? A friend of mine at a plant in Louisiana has to do this for five new air compressors their company bought and I am trying to help him.

Thanks in advance, Terry

Uhhh what do you want this to do? Kind of hard to answer with no design parameters supplied.

Please send crystal ball

Dan Bentler

 

[Ken Roach]

Atlas-Copco doesn't provide a workable example program, just a user manual approximately translated into English.

I'll give you my standard advice about the ComBox-E: Give up now.

....and get a ComBox-S with Modbus RTU instead. Get a Modbus-to-EtherNet/IP converter if it still needs to be on EtherNet/IP.

The ComBox-S works, it's widely installed, reliable, easy to configure and use.

The ComBox-E is none of those.

I can give you detailed documentation on my investigation of the ComBox-E, but it's better to go straight to the solution of ditching it and getting a ComBox-S.

 

[JeffKiper]

Ken where is your adventure? Are you saying you don't like to spend days working on a system just to find out that it doesn't work.

 

[Ken Roach]

Being on the receiving end of some scathing product bug reports has made me less eager to produce my own.

I'm only going to make a positive recommendation: Get a ComBox-S with Modbus and it will work reliably with your compressors.

If you want the technical analysis of the ComBox-E, send me a Private Message.

 

[cshorter]

leitmotif/Ken,

I'm in the process now of convincing the customer to swap the ComBox-E for an S.

I've worked with more than a dozen Modbus Atlas Copco over the past year or so, so I know how well that works.

That said, until I actually get an OK that the units are being swapped out, I'm going to continue to try to figure this out -- and figure it out without the luxury of even having the ComBox-E to work with.

Any assistance you can give will be appreciated. Ken, any sample code or info you have would be awesome -- please just email to [email protected], or I can PM you, or whatever's easiest for you.

As for what I'm trying to accomplish, I solely want to read info back for logging/display on a local HMI, and for plant use in their SCADA system.

Specifically:

In "Modbus-speak" I'd like the "General Compressor Condition" coils 0001 through 0010, or I guess Modbus register 0403d, which looks like it's Parameter ID 0401 in Ethernet/IP.

Past that, I'd like outlet temp, pressure, entering/leaving water temps, and the like.

Again, I'm working towards getting this E swapped for an S, but until I'm for sure on that, I want to keep trying to plug away on this.

Thanks all,

Chris