11-17-2006 12:29 PM
11-20-2006 07:39 PM
09-20-2009 08:02 PM
ok, more info on this one...
Installed V6.2 spent the $1,999 to upgrade to the latest and the greatest...
And Lookout still does not talk to ethernet AB PLC5's (5-80E in my case)
Lookout V5.1 (and before back to V3.8) worked just fine talking to this PLC
Nothing has changed on the computer, except for uninstalling Lookout V5.1 and installing Lookout V6.2
Ryan, please confirm NI has this working. (ethernet to AB PLC5)
Also, please get a fix for the alarm filtering problem with the client.
09-20-2009 08:12 PM
It's sunday night, the plant is down, I'm doing my Lookout Upgrade from V5.1 to V6.2 (couldn't get 6.0 working with ethernet AB PLC5) hoped V6.2 would fix it. but it would not. (see previous post)
and I figured what the heck, i've got nothing to loose, so I rename the albrad.cbx file in Lookout v6.2 to albrad.6p2
then i get a copy of the old albrad.cbx file from like 5.0 (because they removed ethernet on slc500 [see other posts about that]... put that old file in my V6.2 and now i have communications to the PLC5
info on the albrad.cbx file that is working with lookout V6.2...
225,335 bytes Created: April 18, 2001, 6:02:00 PM
09-21-2009 01:55 AM
Rich,
I looked into the source code. The problem is probably in lookout ab driver. We modify the communication protocol in lookout 6.x. Before, we used AB Ethernet protocol, or called CSP. From Lookout 6.x, we start to use Ethernet/IP, or called CIP. So, if your PLC doesn't support CIP, the driver will not work. I guess this is the problem.
From the AB website, I find a KB about firmware.
http://literature.rockwellautomation.com/idc/groups/literature/documents/rn/1785-rn524_-en-p.pdf
On page 3, it is said that a certain revision of PLC5 CPU is Ethernet/IP compliant. I don't have much experience of the PLC5 firmware, but you can try to contact the PLC distributer to check your current CPU firmware and the possibility of upgrading the firmware to support the Ethernet/IP protocol(CIP). You can also contact the distributer to confirm the protocol supported by your current PLC5. If only CSP is supported now, it is the issue.
Another option for you now is to use the old cbx file, if you don't need to use SLC Ethernet.
Or you can try the NI OPC Server. I'm sure that the NI OPC Server will work, and it uses the CSP for PLC5. You need to use OPClient object in lookout to make the connection to OPC Server. You can edit the .lks file directly to convert the current connections from cbx driver to opclient. If you'd like to do so, I can help you with the modification in lks file.
09-21-2009 07:53 AM
Ryan, thanks for your reply. It was very helpfull. My PLC5 is 10 years old, and it probably could stand to have a firmware upgrade. Thanks for checking the code of the NI AB driver (and also about the explination of how it was changed, this makes sense to me now).
One note of interest, all my PLC's are on the ethernet (GE 90-30, AB SLC-505, AB PLC-5/80E) (several of the GE's and several SLC's, only 1 PLC-5).
Contrary to your concern about communicating to the SLC's with the 'old' driver, the SLC's are talking great with Lookout V6.2 using the old AB driver.
If I can find the time, I will firmware upgrade my PLC-5, put back the 'new' driver, test, and report back on how it went.
thanks again
Rich Anderson