Why can't MAX see my cFP1808's?

[Tony_Dean]

I have just purchased two cFP1808 chassis but when I try to configure them using MAX, they do not appear under Remote Sysems. I have a direct ethernet connection to the devices using a CAT5 XOVER cable and the PC's Ethernet adapter has a static IP address and the firewall is disabled. When I tried this with an older chassis, it worked OK so I know that the cable/ethernet adapter is OK. At first I thought it may be a faulty chassis but both new ones do the same thing (i.e. they don't work!).

I am using the system driver set which was shipped with the 1808 chassis (NI System Driver Set 2015.11) and MAX V15.3. I have checked the power supply voltage and it is OK. The Power light is on and the status light is off. The lights on the chassis' ethernet adapter flickers so it appears that something is happening.

Running out of things to try (and patience!) has anybody else experienced this kind of thing, or have any suggestions what I could try?

Thanks

Tony.

[RavensFan]

Does that NI System Driver set include the Fieldpoint drivers?  (I would hope it would since you said it came with the chassis.)

If not, the fieldpoint drivers can be downloaded from here.  NI-Fieldpoint 15.5

What version of LabVIEW are you using?  (One thing I think I remember at least a few years ago about the fieldpoint drivers it that the release of the versions that support the most recent LabVIEW version tended to lag by at least a couple months.)

[Tony_Dean]

Hey, thanks for the reply.

Not sure which version of Fieldpoint drivers were shipped but I downloaded and installed nifpsw1550 as well which I assume to be the latest and greatest! Unfortunately, MAX doesnt seem to tell you the driver versions you have - well not cFP drivers anyway.

I am not using Labview, I have a data logger that uses OPC to read the compact fieldpoint devices - once they have been found and configured in MAX.

We have a number of these systems on site and they have never been any trouble - they worked 'out of the box' and are still working nearly 10 years on but these latest ones - oh man!

Sorry, I am beginning to rant!

Any suggestions?

[Tony_Dean]

Hi,

I managed to sort this problem. I had to switch on the 'Reset IP' switch and cycle the power. Once I had done that, the devices appeared with the default IP address (0.0.0.0) and they could be configured. This might seem like an obvious thing to try but there is nothing in the documentation to tell you to do it and I have never had to do it with any of my other backplanes.

[RavensFan]

Glad to here you figured it out.

Perhaps the cFP's had some network address in them already, but were on a different subnet then your network.  The rest IP switch making them 0.0.0.0 made them discoverable.

[Tony_Dean]

Yea, I thought it might be that  - so I hooked up the console before I did the IP reset, expecting it to report an out of range IP address but it didn't show any IP address at all (see console output below). Anyway, I thought I would post my solution in case anyone else has the same problem and wants to bypass hours of frustration!

CPU: National Instruments Coronado
OS Version: VxWorks5.5.1
BSP version: 1.0/0
Creation date: Sep 12 2005, 15:59:44

Boot ROM v1.00.0009

3

Press any key to stop auto-boot...
 0
auto-booting...

boot device          : rom
unit number          : 0
processor number     : 0
host name            : lvrt
file name            : vxWorks
flags (f)            : 0x8

Booting firmware from ROM, CRC = e5a0ab5d
5454192
Starting at 0x10000...

Serial console active -- not starting industrial protocols on serial port
Initializing network...
Attaching interface lo0...done
Attached TCP/IP interface to motfec unit 0