CompactLogix 1769 L33-ERMS taking a long time to upload and download

[tetcie]

Hi All,

I was making some offline changes to one of our machines PLCs (1769 L33-ERMS), and I noticed that downloading to the PLC took a lot longer than normal - I timed it and it took 6 minutes from pressing the download button to the download being complete. I tried to do an upload from the PLC afterwards and after waiting for 10 minutes I had to abort the upload as the machine was needed for production.

Is this normal with AB PLCs? We have a few other around site that take about 1-2 minutes for both uploads and downloads so am I starting to worry there is an issue somewhere in this system.

When its downloaded, the majority of the time is spent on "downloading controller tags" according to the pop up, but the PLC itself is only using about 25% of its memory, so I'm a confused as to why its taking so long compared to the other PLCs which also use a small percentage of available memory.

Does anybody have any idea what could be causing the PLC to take so long to download and upload? Thanks

 

[plvlce]

This is not normal in my experience, although I once had a 1756-L61 with similar symptoms (decommissioned a few years ago).

Are you connecting via Ethernet or USB? If Ethernet, are you connected directly or as part of a network? Network issues is the one thing I can think of offhand that might cause issues.

 

[tetcie]

Thanks for the quick response! I connect via Ethernet as part of a network - basically there is an HMI panel on the front of the machine that has a network port on the side of the panel used purely for plugging my laptop in. This port is connected to a 5 port switch in the panel where the HMI is connected, and then that 5 port switch is connected to a Stratix switch in the main PLC panel which is fenced off and away from the production area.

I never thought about network issues as the rest of out machines are networked the same way but I guess it's somewhere to start looking in to.

 

[Jim3846]

I had a similar problem and as bizarre as it turned out to be the firmware on the ethernet card. I think it was an old version and when i flash to a newer firmware version, the upload and download issues that you described went away. If you have a spare card, i would flash and set the ip to same as your old card, then swap them out real quick. But test it in some other slot to see if it works tied directly to your laptop. Can't recall if a switch would be necessary to test with the spare card.

 

[plvlce]

I had a similar problem and as bizarre as it turned out to be the firmware on the ethernet card. I think it was an old version and when i flash to a newer firmware version, the upload and download issues that you described went away. If you have a spare card, i would flash and set the ip to same as your old card, then swap them out real quick. But test it in some other slot to see if it works tied directly to your laptop. Can't recall if a switch would be necessary to test with the spare card.

OP's stated PLC has onboard Ethernet...