Automation Listers :

Can somebody recommend me to a place where I can find any kind of information regarding interface of AB's PLC 5/40 on 100 mbps dual redundant ethernet LAN to office PC / third party SCADA software working on TCP/IP LAN?

Regards,

Deven B. Patel

e-mail: [email protected]

 

Deven:

On Friday 17 November 2000 16:24, you wrote:
> Automation Listers :
>
> Can somebody recommend me to a place where I can find any kind of
> information regarding interface of AB's PLC 5/40 on 100 mbps dual redundant
> ethernet LAN to office PC / third party SCADA software working on TCP/IP
> LAN?
>
I don't know about 100BT interfaces to the PLC5/40, but if you are talking 10BT (the native interface from the PLC5/40E or from the AB sidecar addon module), then there are several solutions available. Everything from the
"roll your own" Linux Library for AB Ethernet available at my web site (www.rongage.org) all the way up to several programs costing several thousand dollars each.

This all however is negated by your requirement of dual redundant ethernet LAN. At this, I would probably recommend using the AB Softlogic PLC
software. This runs on a standard PC and therefore can support multiple ethernet cards (dual redundant) and can also support 100BT. A standard AB PLC5 only (to my knowledge) can support a single ethernet interface, making dual redundant pointless.

Good Luck!

--
Ron Gage - Saginaw, MI
([email protected])

 

Lookout HMI/SCADA software from National Instruments, www.ni.com/lookout, provides a driver for The AB PLC5/40 PLC over TCP/IP Lan. These protocol drivers can also be bought separately with the purchase of their protocol
drivers CD. If you need an ethernet port on your PLC, you might consider the National Instruments ethernet to serial device at www.ni.com/serial.
With the ethernet to serial device, you are able to use any serial (RS232 or RS485) based PLC over ethernet and serve the data from a computer as OPC.

Hope this helps.


Preston Todd Johnson
[email protected]

 

Deven,

One of the problems you will face is that the PLC5/40 or ENET side car are ONLY 10 Meg/sec, not 100Meg/sec. Most switches use 10/100 auto sensing ports, so this is not a big problem.

Sendondly, If you dual redundant configuration requires "No Signle Point of Failure" in the network, then with only 1 AUI port, the Transceiver will always be the weekest link. If this is true, you will have to have a 5/40E processor with a 1785-ENET module side car. (giving you 2 AUI ports). Connect the ports to seperate networks (swithes) and you are good to go. At the HMI end use 2 Intell Pro/Server Adapter Cards and use RSLinx (Rockwell) and the tag aliasing will allow the HMI to switch back and forth on failure of the first or second network. The thrid parts SCADA can use OPC to get data from RSLinx.

If you do not require single point of failure, as indicated above, then there are DUAL-PORT transceivers on the market. Using these makes life simple, they look at the heath of the network, and automatically decide which cable to use. (Try 54-12921 from www.imcnetworks.com)