Impossible to communicate/configure cfp 2020 using MAX

[osvamo]

Hi everyone,

This is something like "part II" of trying to use the serial ports of our cFP 2020.

I've received a lot of help, and valuable advise from Ravens Fan and other people from the Spanish community regarding the serial issue, and I truly appreciate their help.

However, just when I was about to perform the initial trials, following their advises, someone from my Department decided, just few days ago, to erase (or format) all the memory contents of one of our cFP 2020. In addition there is another cFP 2020 that was somehow unused for a long time. Well, the point is that none of both controllers is seen by MAX, and therefore they cannot be configured by MAX either. Both are simply a blank (i.e. nothing appears) under remote systems nor under devices and interfaces or another area in the configuration tree.

Another important detail that we used an older version (4.x.x, I guess), and also a newer version (7.x.x, I guess) of MAX trying to gain communications again. None of such versions was able to communicate with any of the cFP 2020. That is, none of these versions was able to establish communication or to show a sign of life from any of both controllers. We test the cabling and it worked perfectly with other cFP 2020 that we have in existence.

I assume that LabVIEW 8.0  or 7.1(the versions that we have) will not be able to communicate with the controllers either if MAX hasn't succeed before. I am right?

Is there any other way to see (communicate with) the cFP 2020?

Is there a "must-do-after-formatting" procedure  that we are missing?

Does this behavior have something to do with the DIP switches in the cFP2020?

Is  there any way to say if the controllers are broken (fatal hardware failure) or if this is just a matter of software configuration?

The deadline to start a lab practice period with the cfps 2020 is very close, and I really need to recover both controllers, so I will truly appreciate any help regarding this issue.

Best regards

[RavensFan · Accepted solution]

I'm glad to have been able to help so far.  Let me see if I can help some more.

First, find a big stick and go beat whoever formatted your controller over the head.

Second, if you are seeing nothing under remote devices, I'm going to guess that the controller was setup for a different IP address on a different subnet then where you are now.  I would try the instructions on page 3-6 of that manual to reset the IP address.  That would set it back to a 0.0.0.0 address which should make it findable by MAX again.

Third, MAX is up to version 4.6.2 (maybe sub-minor version or two later than that.)  So I'm not sure about "newever version 7.x.x" unless you are thinking about a LabVIEW version number.  Yes, you will definitely need to get the controller found in MAX before LV can work with it.  Definitely check the DIP switches such as safe mode and IP reset.  It's possible there is a mismatch of the fieldpoint drivers between the controller and your version of LV.  But I think the two would have to tolerate somehow of mismatch, otherwise you wouldn't be able to update the fieldpoint drivers in the controller.

If there is a problem with the controller, I don't know how to determine that.  Someone from NI might be able to help.  I'm thinking the most likely scenario is that the IP address that the controller was last set for doesn't match the setting for your PC or the network you are on now, in which case the IP reset should help that.

[rfelixm]

Hello,

I have experienced this same problem. Formatted and irresponsible CFP 2020. I have tried the IP Reset move, but still have not been able to communicate with the device. Further more the status LED is flashing RED once.

Any ideas?

[RavensFan]

Per http://www.ni.com/pdf/manuals/370708b.pdf page A-1, 1 flash says the controller is still unconfigured or in reset mode.

Have you tried moving the DIP switch 8 back to off and rebooting again?

[rfelixm]

Thank you for your reply.

Yes, I toggled the dip switch and finally, got MAX to detect it (by also disabling the firewall). Now my problem is that I cannot install software due to a lot of dependencies which as for old software.

Any ideas on that?

[RavensFan]

Which software are you trying to install?

Is it the Fieldpoint drivers and all associated drivers?  If so, you need the version of fieldpoint that works with your controller and also the version of LabVIEW you are using.  You install those by using the Add Software option under the cFP device that shows up in MAX.

Or are you talking about the application VI's that you wrote in LabVIEW?  In that case, you will need to find out what dependencies it can't find and figure out why you don't have them.  It might be add-on toolkits or something else.  There are too many things that might be missing depending on how your code is written to be able to give any more specifics than that.

Also look at these links

Recommended LabVIEW Real-Time Versions for Real-Time [c]FieldPoint Controllers

Software Installation Compatibility for FieldPoint Real-Time Controllers