No ISA Slots

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Thread Starter

R. Scott Frink

The major computer manufacturers are ceasing to provide ISA slots in their new machines. As with many of my clients, the IT Department buys and provides computers. Is there a work around that would allow the use of my clients ISA Network Interface Cards. The Network in question is AB DH+. I have heard the AB PCI Card is not working with Wonderware and SST does not indicate on their web site as providing one. Any thoughts or ideas are appreciated.
 
J
Good question. I mentioned to AB that they need a USB DH+ card about a year ago. Win2K would support it, and laptops could use the same device instead of having a PCMK card. USB 2.0 is coming out soon with I believe 40 times the speed of 1.0, so maybe that will help even though DH+ maxes out at 230K and the current USB standard is well above that.

Hopefully they're reading this....

As for the workaround, I'm interested also. I believe I've seen PCI expansion cards that offer ISA slots, but you have to have an
industrial/server case for clearance.
 
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Curt Wuollet

Buy clones and explain when someone comes to bitch about it. This is that Wintel nonsense where _they_ tell _you_ what you want, probably PC2000 or something like that.

Regards

cww
 
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Duggan, Edmond (IndSys, GEFanuc, TCP)

I have heard that SST has released the PCI version of their 5136-SD card last month; I have yet to see one though.

regards
Edmond Duggan
 
B
Several companies make bus extenders, which are PCI cards that connect to an external card cage. The external card cages are offered in ISA or
PCI. They are reported to be transparent to the software applications.

Bill Sturm
 
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Hullsiek, William

Rather than ISA slots or PCI slots, it would better to have a black-box to serve as an Ethernet gateway/data concentrator/router. You could then use no-slot PC's such as HP E-Vectras. Using the USB for floppies, and hard-drives.
 
R
I have to believe that it would be cheaper to replace the ISA network cards with PCI cards than it would to buy an external chassis!

RIck Daniel
 
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Trevor Ousey

Regarding Wonderware, we run AB PCI PKTxD cards with RSLinx OEM and WWRSLinx I/O server for Intouch and InSql. It's fine, and we can run RSLogix at the same time. We have intially used KTxD with Wonderware AB1784KT I/O server, but have standardised on the newer version.

Regards,
Trevor Ousey
 
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James Ingraham

> The Network in question is AB DH+.

Expensive option #1: SST makes a product that bridges networks. You could bridge from Ethernet to DH+, for example. How well this would work with Wonderware I don't know. Pricing varies, but I would suspect this would cost around $5000.

Expensive option #2: A 4-slot ControlLogix Chasis, a 1756-ENET ethernet card, and a 1756-DHRIO DH+ card can act as a bridge. For software, the RSLinx full version is a DDE/OPC server that can look out over Ethernet from the PC and then to the DH+ network. You do NOT need a ControlLogix processor of any kind to make this work. This WILL work with Wonderware, but is $4250 list price.

Not quite so Expensive option: Check out http://www.dltech.org/ and look at their DF1 to DH+ converter. This is an external box that sits on your serial port.

Hope This helps.

-James
 
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What might work but may take a little Tag database change is to use WonderWare's OPCLink on the WonderWare side and RSLinx OPC server option on the AB side to set up a client/server type application. This would give the means to talk across any AB network.
 
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