Redlion G3 & Micrologix - Constant Reboot

[Marc_U]

I have just had a couple of collegues who are trying to commission some new equipment onsite, report that when they try to connect their Redlion G306 HMI to the panel's Allen-Bradley Micrologix PLC, the HMI goes into constant reboot cycle.

The HMI had been fine, prior to commissioning, the problem only started after they downloaded the latest version of the HMI Crimson 3 program.

Has anyone else had any similar problems?

I have no further details at moment. They are going to try a different G306 HMI tomorrow, and if there is still a problem, then they will bring both HMI & PLC back to the office for me to look at.
So I asking the question now, so as to try & save time, and to try & get ideas of possible problem areas to look at.

 

[OkiePC]

Are they using a serial connection? Could a wiring issue be causing a problem there?

I have loaded a flaky cd3 file in a G304K that caused it to repeatedly reboot. I had to keep trying to download to it again until I got lucky and timed it right.

With a G310 on ethernet, a co-worker had made some network changes and at one point had a switch/router go haywire. He said that the G310 was stuck in a constant pattern of repeatedly rebooting, but when he got the network switch rebooted, it apparently cleared up on its own.

 

[Clay B.]

It is probably a network issue. I would try to get an almost empty HMI program with just the comm link to start with. On the RS-232 link to a G3 I have seen it do that when I had a crossed wire on the RS-232. I also had that happen once when I was using ethernet and the problem turned out to be the switch. In both cases I was talking to a MicroLogix PLC.

 

[JeremyH]

Marc
First have them hold down the first two soft keys to clear the file from the unit. Then have them load in a new file and make sure the unit doesn't reboot. Once we have proved that the unit is still good we can look at the program and find out why its rebooting.

Thanks
Jeremy

 

[Marc_U]

Okay, we have identified the problem.


It turned out that it was not PLC-HMI communication that was the problem (at least not directly).

The problem lies with the HMI Tag Alarms:

If you have an HMI Tag Alarm set so that "Mail To" sends an email out, but you either have the Communication - Services - Mail Manager - 'Enable Mail Manager' set to "No".

When the HMI Tag tries to send the email, the HMI goes into constant reboot, almost as if its Out-box goes instantly full, and it now can't cope.

There is a intention to link the HMI to the internet so that can send alarm emails, but not yet. So once I had set all the Tag Alarms to "No Recipent", and got my collegues to download it. - No more Re-boot.

Thanks for everyones comments, and help.

 

[JeremyH]

Marc, I have duplicated this and will let the software team know so that we can hopefully stop this in the future.

Thanks
Jeremy