I've used this PLC kind time ago, it worked like charm, it had a problem with VISU and NC, which was unable to handle but this is another story...
I guess I'm walking on almost same path here. I've now found out that also visualization (which is supposed to run in CE) will cause immediate timeout on system manager. Simple visu, consisting of one button and one textfield seems to work perfectly, though. I've already dropped task priority on VISU/VISU INPUT tasks, made their and main task cycle times a lot longer, dropped base time to (none).
I'll call Beckhoff tomorrow to get a reality check on for what this plc is really capable of or which is more likely, I've got some newbie mistake happening here.
If your device comes with Windows CE xxx or any embedded compact windows version then follow those steps:
Any PLC makes an infinite loop by default. If you add another one there and you need the PLC to be deterministic and to complete a cycle loop each n milliseconds then... you can imagine it... apocalypse happens... (This happened to me a lot of years ago... in my case I was coming from the IT world and placing a "while (true)" loop looked perfectly acceptable (of course the controller had other ideas).
Same experience here. I admit I was a little bit stoked on IEC61131-3 while getting familiar on the concept. Smooth transition to plc world was expected. Seems there is no free lunch after all.
The only options here are to remove the complete folder where the PLC project has been stored. You can do it by removing the media card from the PLC and deleting the Documents folder.
In order to do that:
1. Stop and unplug the PLC.
2. Remove the card.
3. Delete that folder from any explorer in your PC, phone...
4. Put the card back into the PLC.
5. Start the PLC again.
6. Wait for it to restart a couple of times (it will create the folder back).
7. Start again with all the modifications, parameters and so...
You are ready.
I'll try this. I guess I stumbled on this file creation on first boot thing while trying to find out how to get the DVI resolution lower. Currently it's 1920x1080 and I'd like to test if there was any performance gain available with lower resolution. I changed the resolution from cx config but it gets back to lcd resolution after boot. I've even tried those register patch files that allow for resolution/bpp change. Checked even registry that values are altered but everything gets back to normal after reboot. Tried to save resolution and reboot while screen disconnected.
I remember it was mentioned somewhere that at least CE registry is generated from scratch on first boot, just as you described.
Don't add a WHILE (TRUE) or similar loop...
You can loop of course and this (given the amount of power on those devices will work for you) but you have to check how much cycle time is that loop consuming in order to ensure each cycle is processed correctly.
Imagine you have to loop through 100 elements in one array and with each element you plan to make an operation that takes 2ms (My imagination is really bad).
If you have a 10 ms cycle time my recommendation would be to make only 4 steps of that loop in each cycle... you are making the process 4 times faster by looping and keeping the PLC running as expected.
Good luck!
Thank you very, very much for your tips. On many other forums, this kind of newbie question would have been flamed to smoking pile of charcoal immediately.
I hope I will be able to contribute in similar way on this forum in the future.
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