Slow communication with 1747-UIC

[PipelineTech]

Hello all. New member here.

I am setting up a new laptop at work with rockwell software for a co-worker. Unfortunately, our IT department is forcing us to use window 7 now. I have it all set up with VMWare and XP mode now. This notebook won't accept a PCMK card like I am used to, so I got a 1747-UIC. The problem I am having is that I can go online with my SLC 5/03 that is on the test bench, but the communication with the laptop is very very slow. Is this normal? The ladder at the top of the screen hardly turns and it took me roughly 3 minutes to upload the program, if I used the serial port, it only took 20-30 seconds. I am wondering if this is due to using a virtual machine, or if this is an inherent problem with these. If it is due to the VM does anybody know how to make it better?

 

[zitam]

Can't you use Windows 7 instead of VMWare. I work on W7 with 1747-UIC with RSLogix 500 and it works ok

I also didn't have any problem with other AB programs

 

[PipelineTech]

I could use Windows 7 if I upgrade my version of 500 from 7.10 to at least 8.40 as per Rockwell that version is Windows 7 compatible. I have never had to upgrade my 500 version before, so what kind of consequences would there be for other people that work in the shop with me? In other words, if I am editing programs and saving them, I presume all of my coworkers will need to upgrade as well, right? What happens if I go to work on a program that was done in an earlier version? Is there any kind of firmware updating that you need to do to the processor as you do on a 5000 platform?

Even if I upgrade and use Rslogix 500 in windows 7, I will still need VMWare for Rslogix 5000 since we have plc's with versions ranging from 8 to 17. I will have to upgrade all of them to 19 to be windows 7 compatible I believe.

 

[zitam]

I think that's good reason

Hope someone will help you

 

[Ken Roach]

Eventually you'll have a reason to update everyone's RSLogix 500 software; usually I do it when I get a new processor that's not supported by the old software.

It's pretty common to get a circumstance where you have an RSLogix 500 v8.x offline program but the person who needs to open it has v6 or v7.... so they're out of luck until you export it as an SLC library file. But that's a topic for another day.

I use VMWare Workstation 7 on an Windows 7 64-bit host, with Windows XP SP3 as the guest OS with all of my automation software on it, and have encountered similar issues with USB/Serial devices.

VMWare Workstation's USB redirector is 2x or 3x faster than the COM port redirector.

The "slow way" is to have the driver installed for the 1747-UIC on the Windows 7 host, so that it shows up as a COM port in Windows 7. Then the VMWare guest connects its Windows COM port to the host COM port.

The "fast way" is to have the driver for the 1747-UIC installed on the Windows XP Guest OS, and connect the 1747-UIC as a "removable USB device". I usually do this just by having VMWare maximized when I plug in the USB device, but you can also use the "Removable Devices" option menu in VMWare.

There's yet another way, in which you use RSLinx Gateway on the host PC, but that's a little more complicated.

 

[PipelineTech]

Ken, I do have the UIC installed as a removable device in XP mode, not windows 7. It is still very slow. When you use it like this is it still slow for you? It is much slower than using my PCMK and even a serial cable.

Also, if I update everyone's software, is there anything that has to be done to the processors? What about the programs? Do I just update software, open an older program and re- save it and it will be in the new version?

 

[Ken Roach]

I can't offer any advice on "XP Mode"; after wrestling it a few times I gave up and went back to VMWare Workstation.

When you upgrade RSLogix 500 you won't have to do anything to the controllers or the offline programs.

When you eventually open up an old program and re-save it, it'll be saved in v8.x format and thereafter can only be opened in v8 or later. You could make a copy before opening old programs, so that you preserved those *.RSS files for use by folks with out-of-date computers.

Once upon a time in the late 1980's there was a compiler issue with old versions of APS and AI-500, where you couldn't go online using the old software once it had been edited with newer software. I have not encountered that problem since the mid 1990s and it should not be a consideration for modern RSLogix 500 programs.

 

[PipelineTech]

Ok thanks for the info on the SLC's. what I meant by XP Mode is I installed the free version of XP that is available for windows 7 customers and I run it in VMWare. I am not using the Microsoft/windows virtual machine program. Sorry for the confusion.