Red Lion G3 - CompactLogix Comms Slow [Text] - PLCS.net - Interacti...

http://www.plctalk.net/qanda/archive/index.php/t-63784.html

PLCS.net - Interactive Q & A > PLCS.net - Interactive Q & A > LIVE PLC Questions And Answers > Red Lion G3 CompactLogix Comms Slow

View Full Version : Red Lion G3 - CompactLogix Comms Slow

mvanderelst

PDA

May 27th, 2011, 11:01 AM

I am using a Red Lion G308 and AB CompactLogix L32E - communications are done on Ethernet. I'm just wondering if anyone else has had any issues with the PLC tag updates taking a long time. I am using the 'Allen Bradley Native Tags via L5K' driver and I am using a single UDT of about 1.9KB to communicate between the devices. It can take a few seconds before the tags update on screen. I have tried the 'Favour UI writes' but it didn't seem to make a difference. Has anyone else seen this?

OkiePC

May 27th, 2011, 11:34 AM

One thing I did when setting up comms from a G308 to a L32 was to make a copy of the project, open it, delete all the stuff I didn't want the G308 to access, then did the export to L5K, and then I used that file in Crimson 3.0 I don't know if that will help. I just knew that I only needed access to about 10% of the tags in my application so it seemed like a sensible move to improve comms efficiency. The end result is lightning fast, but I don't know if my steps above actually made the difference. I have spanning reads enabled, transactional writes enabled, and favor UI writes set to "No". In the Logix PAC, I had created HMI array tags for most everything, but I am also reading/writing to two UDTs for a Hardy Weigh Scale module that I included in the l5k.

nwboson

May 28th, 2011, 12:02 PM

Are there other devices are on your Ethernet network? FlexIO? Ethernet VFD's? PC's? Routers? Switches? Or are you just connecting straight from the L32E Ethernet to the G308?

OkiePC

May 28th, 2011, 09:40 PM

nwboson is probably on the trail of your true problem. My application had the 5/04 to a Net-Eni (later upgraded to a DigiOne IAP) serially, and then to a port on a Hirschmann managed switch (RS20 I believe). The G308 is connected to the same switch, so there is only one ethernet switch port to port "hop" between the G3 and the Digi. Even the web broswer from my desktop is pretty quick with 4 good switches (and a dumb hub) in the path. But I have another G310 which is much slower via the browser using 4 hops through some unmanaged switches. It is fine locally too though going through two managed and one unmanaged switch to a 5/03 serial port via a Digi.

NFischer1978

May 31st, 2011, 11:48 AM

I have the same problem on some of our G310 Red Lion panels. Same setup via L5K and we are going through 2 switches. I contacted Red Lion and the problem seemed to be to many alarm points in the database, I had about 375. I assume tags that aren't used in the L5K file aren't a problem because they won't be updated but every signal that is an alarm will be updated every cycle adding to the load. The only thing that might help is putting your bools in arrays but his would mean major changes to your PLC program. Answer from Dan from Red Lion: This has to do with the protocol used to talk to the PLC. It is ASCII based, and can only read 1 tag at a time. You have 374 tags with alarms configured, which means that we are always reading those 374 items, not to mention the tags needed for programs and the data logs. Yes, having everything in arrays would be what you need. From there, you can take it another step farther and use the PLC/SLC mapping capability in the PLC, then use the DF1 Master via PCCC/EIP driver which is a binary protocol which will increase the speed further. .

1 of 1

1/08/2011 1:21 p.m.