Micrologix 1400 series A -ASCII/COM ports/Source

[deathbysnusnu]

I apologize for the elementary content of my question. I have just started and I have been trying to do some of the examples in the manual, but I keep getting error messages.

1) On RSLinx, the only port I can use is COM1 (set to SLC-CH0/Micro/Panel/View). If I try to change to COM2 (using a Null Modem cable), it says that "re-configuring the port has failed". If I delete it and try to start over by adding a new driver type using COM2, it says that it fails to configure because the COM port is already in use. I do have both COM ports connected to the PC. I'm wondering if I must use COM1 when adding a driver configuration or if there's a problem with my COM2 connection.

2) If I try to change Channel 0 to ASCII, when I try to download to the PLC it says that "Communication configuration is different. * Warning * Loss of communication on CURRENT channel (CH0) will occur. *Warning* Loss of communication on CURRENT channel (CH0) MAY occur. Accept new configuration?". I find this quite confusing because according to the manual I must use Channel 0 in the ASCII instructions, but when I try to configure Channel 0 to ASCII, it pops up error messages.

3) When using the AWA instruction, I cannot change the contents of the source. I wrote ST14:0 as the address and it does appear in the Data Files, but I cannot write anything to it.

4) Also in the AWA instruction, I wrote R6:0/EN in the Control field but I get the following error message: "Address must be specified to the element level".

Any hint to the right direction is appreciated. Thank you very much

 

[Epy]

1) Check device manager to see what COM numbers are assigned to what
2) This is normal, that's just warning you that you're changing the configuration of one of the comm ports (serial, ethernet, whatever)
4) R6:0/EN is the enable bit, not R6:0 is the control element itself

 

[deathbysnusnu]

1) Check device manager to see what COM numbers are assigned to what
2) This is normal, that's just warning you that you're changing the configuration of one of the comm ports (serial, ethernet, whatever)
4) R6:0/EN is the enable bit, not R6:0 is the control element itself

Thank you, Epy!

1) I realized that the COM port I'm supposed to refer to is the COM port of the computer, not the PLC. So I checked in the Windows device manager and changed the COM port to COM6 (USB port -> adapter -> Null Modem -> PLC). Now when I click on Auto-Configure it does try to configure, but it says that it is unable to find the baud rate and the parity bits (picture). Also I wonder which device I should use.

2) My problem with this one is that when I downloaded the program to the PLC after configuring Channel 0 to ASCII I could no longer communicate between the PC and the PLC (RSLinx showed that communication between the two devices was lost). But according to the manual I can only use Channel 0 in the AWT ASCII instruction. In order to access the PLC again with RSLogix Micro Starter I had to manually set the PLC to the default configuration. I wonder if this is expected. I would like to toggle B3 to test the program, but if I lose communication between the PC and the PLC I assume I would have to use an actual input?

4) I see my confusion now, thank you.

 

[deathbysnusnu]

I just would like to say that I have got it to work and I can now see the characters in the serial terminal. I am using Channel 2 in the AWT instruction. I don't know yet if it was a combination of changes or this change specifically that made it work.

Regarding the RSLinx, I suspect now that the connection fails because I was trying to use the wrong port of the PLC (the one associated with channel 2 instead of 0). I suppose I have wrongly assumed that I could connect to the PC using either port, but the fact that there's only Channel 0 in the drop down menu should have given me a hint about the port. Anyway, thank you, the forum has given me a lot of information to work with!