Hello Owners of the GE MARK IV/V/VI D-EHC system!

I'm doing a little bit of research regarding the ways these systems can interface directly to the DCS, and I'm trying to come up with some of the technical benefits/deficiencies associated with each of the methods. The methods I'm looking at are:
1. RS232 Serial Connection from MARK System direct to DCS controllers
2. Use of Ethernet/IP from MARK System with a virtual connection to the DCS controllers.

In general, I know that the speed of the link is the immediate issue, with Ethernet/IP being the hands down favorite. Additionally, there is an opportunity to get better resolution on points coming from MARK using Ethernet. However, I understand there may be a great deal more complexity on the Ethernet side than with RS232, plus there are more devices between the MARK and the DCS.

SO, please sound off! I'd like to hear about your experiences with the serial and Ethernet options, the good and the bad! My eventual goal is to provide a chart with the differences in functionality between the two, and will be happy to provide it to the community.

Mike Toecker

 

Mike,

GE have a propreitory software called GSM which can as well be used for third party communications if you can look at other options than Modbus, But you may need to buy some drivers for it from GE & it also supports Alarms, events which Modbus doesn't. I'm not sure of the Cost differences with Modbus

Hope this helps,
Zion

 

Hi Mike,

Most new DCSes support OPC, so it could be an option for data transfer. MatrikonOPC has an OPC server that talks to the GSM.exe application that Zion mentioned. It is available here: http://www.matrikonopc.com/opc-drivers/209/base-driver-details.aspx Unlike other OPC Servers, it supports both real-time and alarms.

Adriel Michaud
MatrikonOPC
www.matrikonopc.com

 

Thank you everyone for your comments and options!

Mike

 

Mike,

How many points are you needing from one system to the other?

We run two Cimplicity servers. Both points from the Mark VI and DCS (Yokogawa) are registered in the Cimplicity project. This allowed our operator screens to have points from both systems displayed.

Any points needed for control were hardwired between the two systems.

 

>Hi Mike,
>Hi Adriel,

I also need this similar kind of solution/information.

We also have Mark IV, Mark V, Mark VI, Mark VIe system, and need a faster way of data transfer,supervision and control from DCS/SCADA. I have already mailed the same query to your support department. Can you elaborate further on this?

How will MatrikonOPC handle enumerated data type? We have some single tags with almost 25 identifiers, how is it being handled?

Kindly revert back.
Regards,
Rahul

 

Rahul,

Global Controls has interfaces to the Speedtronic systems that you might be interested in due to their capabilities to talk with a DCS.

Regards,
Ron