Panelmate Power Series - USB Connection

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Thread Starter

John Kelley

I have a project in a plant with several Panelmate Power Series 1500's. I have (what I assume) is the lastest and greatest Panelmate Software from C/H.

My problem is that the transfer utility does not recognise my serial (plug-in) USB adapter and therefore will not allow a serial transfer. C/H alludes to this problem in their docs but does not explain it. The virtual serial device driver is running.

Two of these machines talk to the Panelmate via DH+ while a third is on Modicon Modbus+. I don't want to go the network route if avoidable (a bunch of cables and a AIC or PCMK for the AB's).

Is there a way to get Panelmate Power Series software to recognise psuedo serial ports running under USB?

Thanks,

John
 
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John, what operating system are you using for your computer with the Panelmate software. If you are using Windows NT, it doesn't support USB.
 
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Geoffrey McPherson

From my experience, I could never get the USB to serial converter to work. It appears that the converter does not work in most applications. However, what does work is the PCMCIA to serial converter from SOCKET. Their URL is www.socketcom.com
 
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Ranjan Acharya

As far as Windows NT goes with USB, there are software drivers that provide USB support for with specific hardware items. We have used the EdgePort serial adapter with Windows NT 4.0 (SP5 and SP6a) for quite some time with acceptable success (namely to Modicon PLCs and Modbus Multiplexers and Daniel Flow Computers).

EdgePort can be reached on http://www.ionetworks.com/products/edgeport.html.

Some of our customers use PanelMate's, but we have not tried the EdgePort with it. We use the SocketIO adapter too, but, alas, have not tried it with a PanelMate either!

RJ
 
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Alex Pavloff

Actually, I've used tested a USB to serial convertor on all our own software here. If its Windows software, then in general, it works. If its DOS software (even under Windows), then it usually doesn't work. The other annoying thing is that Back In The Day, no one ever though that there would be more than COM1 and COM2, meaning that many applications won't work with USB to serial adapaters, as they usually put themselves up around COM4 or above.

Alex Pavloff
Software Engineer
Eason Technology
 
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Robert Willis

The problem that you are experiencing is based on the fact that the Panelmate software is using the convential IRQ and port assignments to locate COM1 and COM2. The USB implementation does not map to those specific locations and only presents the USB com ports as a virtual port using the COMx description.

I have the Edgeport 4 and can confirm that if your application does a direct test of the "Standard" IRQ and Port assignments, they typically will not work with the USB devices.

Regards
Robert Willis
 
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Kerry Sparks

I would suggest calling Cutler-Hammer Tech Support at (800)809-2772 (Options 5,5). Until recently they didn't have a tested/verified
solution but since a lot of their users have called with this same issue they can help. The bottom line is they have tested using the
'301-1000-02 Edgeport/2' model. It works great on Win2000. They have run the Transfer Utility and have even run PMPC serial drivers on this. Note that they have not tried this on NT. My understanding of the need for this is for newer systems, primarily laptops, that do not have a
serial port available. If this is true than I don't know who would be running NT on this type of a system since NT lacks built in USB
support.

Kerry Sparks
PanelMate Product Manager
 
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