S5 Connection Problem

[pete66]

Yes, the Siemens cable works fine on my old Toshiba laptop, but that has a proper on-board 9 pin serial port. I have tried connecting via USB bridge, and PCMCIA on Win 2K, XP home, and XP pro, but I can't get a bloody peep out of it!

 

[jvdcande]

Pete,

did you use the FIFO buffers? Normally COM port are set by default, but I have solved problems by disabling this with my USB/RS232 converter.

Kind regards,

 

[NedAus]

Probably not what you want to hear...

Hi Pete
I'm running Schneider Modicon TSX Premium, and I've got the same problem as you. I have spoken to some experts at the company that I work for and was told that unfortunatelly some laptops just dont like USB/RS232 converters. I have invested in PCMCIA- serial and had success.
Good luck!

 

[JimRoz]

I suggest trying your setup with FasTrak's Windows application, (which lets you go Online for a limited amount of time) in Demo mode. If it works there, then you may narrow down some of the problems. FasTrak has not had any problems with the USB-Serial converters and our Windows S5 software.
www.fast-soft.com
[email protected]

 

[catserveng]

We just went thur this issue ourselves, spent about $1000USD on different convertors, spent several hours trying different settings, and finally found an older laptop with a serial port, installed the S5 program on it and away we went.

Our experience with both Siemens and Modicon older programming platforms on newer computors has been pretty poor, so we are just buying good used laptops and setting them up specially for those processors.

 

[10baseT]

To check the setting and response of the PCMCIA-->RS232 card why not use hyperterminal ? join pins 2 and 3 together and set up the comm port in HT , and see if the characters you type are echoed . If they are not , then look at the comm port settings in more detail .

 

[wwlederer]

We have similar problem with communication to S7-300. I tryed both USB/ and PCMCIA/RS232 with no success. At the end simple bought in eBay an old laptop for this purpose.

 

[pete66]

Many thanks to all of you folks for your suggestions - I did not manage to get it to work so I shall just have to hang on to my trusty old Toshiba Sat Pro for S5 work.
However, this can serve as a cautionary tale - if you are thinking of buying a new laptop, but still need to connect to older hardware such as S5 - ensure you choose a laptop with a genuine 9 pin 'D' connector serial port - that way you will save yourselves a tremendous amount of time and effort.

 

[seppoalanen]

UART must get off as Jean Pierre told earlier, S5 is DOS application and can't use UART-buffer.
In addition, USB/RS232C is in the same COM-Port as build-in Modem. In my case poth are in COM3. Modem uses UART and Step5 v.7.23 not. I have Win2000/HP omnibook xe4400/Vivanco TwinTower USB/RS232C.

 

[kareemmm]

S5 connection problem

Dear Mr. Kelkoon
we connect SIEMENS pg to our SIEMENS S5 95 u plc for reloading ,but the pg shows the message is off line.
we checked our communicatin cable ,it is ok
can you give any advice pls.
kareem

 

[MWhite]

S5 USB comms

We've just bought a USB to TTY (current loop) device to try. We've only done preliminary trials but so far seems to be working. It goes direct from USB to the 15-pin CPU connector.

More info on the device can be found at

http://www.helmholz.de/prod.d,48_56_85,70026160240381627483992407548007.html?prod=71

Step 5 v7.2 (running on a Dell laptop with Win XP Pro) was used to test it.

Martin

 

[johnmck66]

Step 5 comms

Hi,
I use my Step5 from WinXP via virtual machine configured as a DOS 6.22, then I installed S5 - I have a PCMCIA RS232, as well and it works OK.
I also have a couple of old Tosh laptops I use for training, always handy.
Selling PLC bits on Ebay