We've inherited a Bailey Harmony/Infi90 system comprising 5 BRC300 controllers, a HMI PC (ABB PGP) and Composer. The times on the HMI and controllers are synchronised to each other but not to any external source, even though an IRIG-B GPS is connected. If we change the time on the HMI PC it immediately reverts to the cnet bus time. Ideally we'd like to synchronise the system to the GPS but we'd also settle for synching the time using NTP via the HMI. But first we need to understand how time synchronisation on on this system works. We have access to hardware manuals but they don't appear to give an overall summary of the process. Any tips as to where to look or Infi90 system time-synch basics would be much appreciated.

Thanks

 

We use the old MFPs with Composer accompanied with the ABB Process Portal B 1.1. The way we sync the time is to figure out which RTDS is in control and change the time there. As an 'Administrator' and go to 'RUN' and type the command 'tsyncctrl' and enter 'msite' when the command line appears. This should tell you which computer is in control of your time. Re-enter the 'msite' several times to ensure two computers are not fighting over the time sync of the system. If they are, then a 'regedit' is necessary. If more info is needed, we can help.

 

Time sync is a tough one, it seems to be a problem with most systems. For the Infi-90 ring you normally set the time sync capabilities in the controller and depending on your HMI you can set a priority for which CIU is the master time sync computer. Using Conductor NT there are tags configured for each CIU and they have a time sync priority. Set the computer with the GPS time sync unit to the highest priority and then you should be OK.

It will depend on how good your interface to the CIU is. The old serial CIUs could be hacked to work with anything but now with SemAPI the interface is controlled by ABB licensing and it is standardised.

If your Windows PCs are fighting over time sync I have using Tardis http://www.kaska.demon.co.uk to assist with setting time using NTP servers.

Chris