PC unable to communicate with plc

Hi I recently bought a AB micrologix 1100 plc as a bit of a project to work with at home but I'm struggling to get the plc to talk to the laptop and was wondering if anyone could offer any suggestions. I bought a new laptop (hybrid tablet) it's running windows 8.1 and it didn't have any Ethernet ports so I'm using a usb to Ethernet cable to connect to the plc. I can assign an IP using BOOTP (although I'm not really sure what IP I should be assigning it) but when I go back to rslinx it says unrecognised device and the icon that appears is a yellow question mark it also says comms error on the rhs of rslinx. When I assign it the same IP as my laptop it connects but I get a message which says "can't set port type to 288: no harmony object for this Ethernet" I'm stuck for ideas but I have a feeling it doesn't like windows 8.1 or it could be that it doesn't like the usb to Ethernet adapter. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks

The one recommendation I would give is to delete the harmony files and try again. It may be a Windows 8.1 issue, I was under the impression that Rockwell hasn't certified any of their software for Windows 8 at this point.

Don't delete HRMYUI.DLL....that would be bad. I learned that trick here, by the way, and it's been a great help for me whenever RSLinx decides to give me issues.

Take a step back here... what IP address did you assign to the PLC and is it in the same subnet as your laptop?

AusMatt,

Welcome to the forum.
#1 did you install the driver for the usb to ethernet adapter?
#2 you cannot assign the plc the same address as the tablet - address conflict. i would change the last digit by 10 of the plc. i also suggest a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0
#3 if you are going from the pc directly to the plc, you will need a crossover cable.

regards,
james

If it is a basic network, like a home network the IP address should be set so that the first 3 octets are the same and the last one is a unique number on the network. Such as 192.168.1.XXX . If you are using a home router it usually assigns the assigns the numbers sequentially router 001 PC 002 and so on so just make sure that there are no other devices on the network with that number. Also make sure that the Subnet is set the same as your PC probably 255.255.255.000.

Andy

Actually the first thing you need to do is confirm that the version of RSLinx is compatible with the version of MicroLogix 1100 that you have.

Thanks for all the replies. The subnet mask I used was 255.255.255.0, with the IP address I also tried assigning the same configuration as my laptop but changing the last digit by one, so the laptop was 8 I made the plc 7. I installed the drivers that came with the usb to Ethernet adapter but I used a straight through cable not a crossover cable.

What version of RSLinx and what firmware load in the 1100?

AusMatt said:

Thanks for all the replies. The subnet mask I used was 255.255.255.0, with the IP address I also tried assigning the same configuration as my laptop but changing the last digit by one, so the laptop was 8 I made the plc 7. I installed the drivers that came with the usb to Ethernet adapter but I used a straight through cable not a crossover cable.

Click to expand...

G'day AusMatt... my wife is from Australia... pleased to meet you.
The CROSSOVER cable is probably the issue.
Could you share the make and model number of the USB to ENET adaptor?

As was mentioned above, Rockwell is slow about adopting newer versions of Windows. It took them a while to move into Windows 7, and even when they "did", the older software is typically run in a Virtual XP PRO environment. For that reason I have 1- W7 laptop; 10- XP PRO SP3's; 1- W2K; 1- W98; and good old DOS 6.60 for all the DOS stuff. DOS programs run well on XP PRO SP3 either in a DOS window or DOSBOX.

Sorry for the side trip there... You might want to confirm that your version of RSLINX and RS500 can run on W8 with no known issues, or if they need to run in a VIRTUAL XP OS.

Let us know how it turns out.

AusMatt said:

Thanks for all the replies. The subnet mask I used was 255.255.255.0, with the IP address I also tried assigning the same configuration as my laptop but changing the last digit by one, so the laptop was 8 I made the plc 7. I installed the drivers that came with the usb to Ethernet adapter but I used a straight through cable not a crossover cable.

Click to expand...

since it is connected directly and not thru a hub you will need a crossover cable. basically the transmit pair and the recieve pair cross so the transmit from one goes into the recieve of the other and vice versa. give that a try and then we can see.

Ok cool I can make a crossover cable no worries. I'm running RSlinks classic lite version 2.57.00 and RSLogix micro lite version 8.30 (I'm just looking at the release notes and it only supports up to windows 7). Bit of back story, I work as an electrician and one of our projects is High voltage substation maintenance. I was speaking to the guy running the job today. He is an engineer and turns out is also a university lecturer who teaches plc units and he suggested getting a usb to rs485 converter and trying to communicate that way. I didn't fully understand what he was explaining to me but he said I need a node between the plc and PC and I'm guessing he meant the converter becomes the node?. Not 100% sure though.

Let us know how it turned out.
The "node" idea is to circumvent the need of a crossover cable.

I’m guessing he’s talking about connecting via DF1. The channel 0 port defaults to DF1 full duplex so if nobody has changed that configuration (most people don’t use the channel 0 port so it’s probably still at default) then you would want to setup RSLinx with a DF1 Full Duplex driver set to 19.2Kbaud, no parity, 8 data bits and no handshaking. You would then connect to the DF1 port and you should be able to go online with the processor. Once there you can see what the IP address is and change it to what you need. You will need a USB to Serial adaptor and one that is supported by Windows 8.
With all of that said, this would require that you have a “PM02” cable (special cable from Rockwell). The channel 0 port on all MicroLogix PLC’s use a proprietary connector and while you can find them, it’s easier to find the cable (I’m sure your local AB distributor has them).
Another note, I doubt the problem is an ethernet cable issue. To check, plug the Cat5 cable into both the adaptors port and the MicroLogix. The adaptor should have some sort of LED on it indicating that it’s got an Ethernet connection. If it lights up the cable is good. Most Ethernet devices these days have an “Auto MDI-X” port which senses the connection and switches to the needed configuration. I’d be very surprised of the USB adaptor you got (assuming it’s not many years old) isn’t an Auto MDI-X device.

Step back a level. Try a basic ping command from the PC.
check to see if you can upload the EDS file from the device.
Yellow question mark can mean "I can see you but I don't know what you are"
How did you connect to it to change the IP Address?