A little more information
Allen,
Please try to explain what you are doing, how things are set up, what trouble you are having .
You are definitely right there. Rereading it, I was in too much of a hurry when i wrote it, and did not give near enough information for anyone to help me.
As for the rest of the post, the tone is unnecessary. Most of that is probably from what gets lost in written communication. I AM learing PLCs and I will be around for a while, so I think it might be worth my time to give a that post a little background and see if maybe I can get a little more positive and possibly even helpful communication going here.
It all started about a year ago, when my maintenance manager dropped a pico controller and the manual into my lap and said, "This is much cheaper than all those timers you have in this circuit." I have been teaching myself to program PLCs now for a year (part time....i might not even include it in my job description). I know how to write programs to replace circuits and some basic troubleshooting. I pick out my own hardware.
Part of the reason for my post was laziness (not wanting to sit in front of an AB manual all day.) The other part was hoping that someone might explain some broader things to me (because i have probably assumed incorrectly on how things work....especially with regards to the way a computer and PLC communicate).
Anyway, the best answers i can give to your questions.....
Both nodes? What's the network configuation? Which model of SLC?
When referring to both nodes, I meant 0 ITLAPTOP (the computer i was on) and 1 the SLC.Maybe node is not the right word. It is a SLC 5/01.
Network configuration?
How are you going on-line? Channel 0. DH+? DH-485?
This is what I know: I change the driver from RS232/DF1 to 1747 PIC/AIC in three places (as the driver for my com [ort, driver for RS :inx, and in the tools/options/sys. comm. menu in RS Logix). Is normally all I have to do. Channel 0? Yep, remember seeing that in octal somewhere. DH + i think, but i cant say for sure.
Huh? RSLogix will create try to create a new file when it tries to go online with a PLC that it doesn't have (or know where) the current offline copy off. How does that relate to "showing node 0"?
This one I dont understand at all, but maybe node isn't the right word. When i tried to go online with the PLC, I chose "Who Active Go Online." Both RS Linx and Who Active showed 0 ITLAPTOP and 1 SLC 5/01 . When i tried to go online, it would do the create new file and then there would be a red x through 0 ITLAPTOP on who active, but not on RS Linx!?. It would then give me a message that led me to believe that he processor may be bad. We had a spare.....Why not try it?
How did you figure THAT? If RSlogix was trying to create a file, then you WERE communicating with it.
The error message said that it was unable to communicate with the processor and the processor may be corrupt. I probably should have put that in there.
You did WHAT? How? Why? What EXACTLY did you do to the poor processor?
I upgraded the firmware. As per the manuals instructions. Because it had a sticker that said "this processor requires a firmware upgrade" on it. What did exactly is in the AB manual.... I pretty much took the old firmware chip. Put it in the new processor. Watched the light show to verify that it loaded correct Then, took it out.
Tell you anything about what?
AB processors, programming software....why they might not want to talk? What do they say at the time that the create new file comes up?
Why i seemed to have communication, then they told me that they weren't communicating. If firmware could cause this problem. What exactly is firmware? Your third question is probably my main question though....Why would it say on my laptop that it cant find ITLAPTOP? Why does it happen right at create new file?
