RIO Cabling - SLC 500 1746-SN/ASB

[stevendt]

Hi,

I want to set up a remote I/O link between an SLC 5/04 and a remote I/O rack which would be about 100m away (cable distance). I know that I should be using Belden 9463 cable but the cable routing is awkward and I'd rather not have to run new cable. I have a run of Cat6 UTP that I could use and I wondered if anyone had used out of spec cable for an RIO link to good effect ?

The signals are not critical, but I obviously want the link to be reliable. I know that if it came to it, I could slow down the link - according to the manual, the maximum speed with Belden cable varies with length :-

57.6K baud 3048 meters (10,000 feet)
115.2K baud 1525 meters (5,000 feet)
230.4K baud 750 meters (2,500 feet)

so I'm guessing that poorer quality cable could behave in a similar manner, even though the actual cable lengths would be much less, I could probably get the reliability up by dropping the speed.

As with most things, I could try it and see, but I would be interested in comments from others with experience of Remote I/O before I try setting it up. Should I even consider it, or not even go there ?

Regards
Dave

 

[Paullys50]

Hi,

I want to set up a remote I/O link between an SLC 5/04 and a remote I/O rack which would be about 100m away (cable distance). I know that I should be using Belden 9463 cable...

Why go from a known to known then?

The signals are not critical, but I obviously want the link to be reliable. ....

The Plant Manager will thank you for that!

so I'm guessing that poorer quality cable could behave in a similar manner, even though the actual cable lengths would be much less, I could probably get the reliability up by dropping the speed.

Are you willing to bet the reliability of your control system up against that statement?

As with most things, I could try it and see, but I would be interested in comments from others with experience of Remote I/O before I try setting it up. Should I even consider it, or not even go there ?

If you have time and money to burn, go ahead and experiment, just do it right when you are done experimenting

Why people want to deviate from the recommendation when it comes to communications especially when it comes to control has always left me confused.

 

[sthompson]

As pointed out by Paully above, this is not the proper cable. Blue Hose is shielded twinax, and Cat 6 is designed for Ethernet Gigabit Networks, and as far as I know it is unshielded. It might work, since RIO is pretty robust. However, one day someone might run a cable carrying the output of a VFD to a motor, and everything might go sideways.

I would strongly recommend using the proper cable, with the proper terminating resistors. If it helps any, Blue Hose comes in Teck Armoured Cable, and is pretty easy to run.

Stu.....

 

[OZEE]

I once saw a remote rack that was connected via SO-Cord... They wondered why they were having problems with that rack.

Don't do it -- it's not worth the pain.