Red Lion Crimson Emulator Issue

[Hunterseeker]

Hello Kind Folks,

On my Red Lion Crimson, the "Send to Emulator" box is greyed out, and thus I'm unable to run the emulator.

Has anyone run into this issue before, or know a resolution?

Im running Crimson 3.1, build 3113.0000 on Windows 10.

Many Thanks,
Hunter

 

[BryanG]

Bad news, the emulator doesn't and hasn't ever worked in Crimson 3.1. Yes, I know that the emulator button is there, I think they do that just to drive us mad

 

[Hunterseeker]

Thank you for your quick response!

Was hoping that maybe they had it fixed in the later versions. Do you know if it works in 3.2, or if there's a way to downgrade from 3.1 to 3.0?

 

[joseph_e2]

Tech support's answer to me was to create a project in 3.2 and use that emulator to test everything, making the same changes in both (or copy-pasting from 3.1 to 3.2). I had stability issues in the emulator in 3.2, though, so it didn't really help me much.



I've always had trouble with their emulators, across multiple PCs and multiple installs so I generally try to keep a screen on hand for testing. That's been really hard to do lately, though, with lead times going nuts.

 

[OkiePC]

I have had good luck with the 3.0 emulator, although it has some quirks. You can't choose some of the hardware you might be using, but if you pick the nearest screen size, you can build an application and test it in 3.0 then import the finished product into 3.1 and then save a conversion for the target hardware.

I have 3.2 but haven't used it for a real application yet. I will have to update it and check out its emulator capabilities.

 

[JeffKiper]

Be careful the Emulate doesnt work over Wi-Fi. Ive learned thay the hard way a few times.

 

[Hunterseeker]

So I moved my 3.1 project to 3.2, but was unable to get the emulator to communicate to the PLC via modbus.

Interestingly enough, I was able to get a project in 3.0 to talk to the same PLC through the emulator, but when I opened the same project in 3.2, the emulator wouldn't communicate.

Is there any secret sauce to get the 3.2 emulator working that is different from the 3.0? I'm also noticing the stability issues mentioned earlier, the 3.2 emulator constantly crashes with a "winhost.exe service has stopped working."

Thanks Again

 

[JeffKiper]

Ha e you reached out to Redlion technically support yet?

 

[Hunterseeker]

I have, so far no answer.

 

[OkiePC]

Tell us more about your application. Modbus TCP or RTU?

What make/model is the Modbus device?

If you can zip and attach your crimson file that would be helpful too.

 

[Hunterseeker]

I think I found the source of the issue. So I've been playing around with it, and I realized that the 3.0 emulator is working, while the 3.2 is not working, with the exact same configuration.

I looked into the 3.0 emulator, and each time I loaded it, I noticed it was using a different port. First 34066, then 36133, then 37700.

However, when I use the 3.2 emulator, it always communicates on port 0.

I'm trying to communicate via modbus to a Triconex PLC. Unfortunately, triconex has a port restriction on ports below 1024.

Is there a way to change what port the 3.2 emulator uses?

Thanks!

 

[BryanG]

Might be worth submitting this information to Tech Support:
https://support.redlion.net/hc/en-us/requests/new
Generally they come back pretty quickly, but there are always exceptions.

 

[Hunterseeker]

I've been in communication with tech support. They've been excellent, though this issue might be a bit beyond them.

I have resolved the issue by setting up port forwarding on the laptop that is running the emulator. I set up the emulator communication driver to look at the laptop IP address instead of the PLC, and setup the port forwarding to read from the emulator and redirect it to the PLC.

This works, though it is a bit inconvenient. I was hoping there might be a way to manipulate the emulator memory image files so that is uses a different port, though that might be beyond the call of duty.