PROVOX to Delta V Upgrade

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Thread Starter

Gee, Jeffrey

Does anyone have any experiences they would want to share, positive or negative, regarding trying to upgrade/update their older PROVOX system to a Delta V system? This PROVOX is a mid 80's
technology VAX DCS from Fisher-Rosemount, and Delta V is a PC based upgrade that is supposed to be somewhat compatible, but I'm hoping someone can let me know, through previous experience how true this is.
 
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Maurice Moshe

No connection and no compatibility, other than they both came from the same merged company.
this is not an upgrade it is a replacement!!. your bets are all open for all other suppliers.
foxboro does a good job at upgrading the provox, keeping your field wiring intact, resulting into major savings.
 
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Kevin Totherow

When you say upgrade Provox to Delta V I immediately thought of the whole Provox system - particularly controllers. That, of course, is not an upgrade but a replacement. If you replace the whole Provox system you can go with any system - Delta V or others.

However, you went on to describe the Provox as VAX and Delta V as PC so you must actually be talking about the consoles and not the whole Provox system. If this is the case you are indeed in great shape. The Provox HDL can be used to install "consoles" from any number of HMI companies. The console upgrade is very clean, works great, and very cost effective with many benefits to the consoles and serendipitous benefits to the Provox controllers and data highway. In 1997, I replaced Provox VAX consoles with Wonderware InTouch HMI's in two pulp mills. The system has been a major success and has worked quite well.

I wrote a paper on the subject in April 2000 Control Magazine. Feel free to get in touch with me if you are interested.

Kevin
 
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Richard Dewees

I left a job where I worked with Provox a couple of years ago. At that time FRSI was coming out with an NT based operator interface. If PC based display is all that you are looking for that may be an option. They also had a PC based configuration tool coming out to replace Envox
called Control Desktop.

I kinda like the Vax systems myself though.(except for the TK50 tape drives)

Rick Dewees
Ocean Kayak
 
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Michael Aurzada

I've directly worked on multiple projects for FRS on upgrading 1980's PROVOX (DCU, Series10 Controllers, and Control I/O) to DeltaV technology with success.

There is no "drag and drop" replacement per se, but there are several tools used to help save project engineering costs and implementation, and decreased startup time and costs.

First is the ability to keep the I/O terminations without touching them and easily using DeltaV I/O with mass termination wiring to quickly change over the I/O. We did this at a Paper mill in Canada, and it worked very well. Total cut over time on the I/O (about 1200 points) was under 3 hours. I can't imagine reterminating all those I/O. You can find more information about
"flex-connect" from http://www.flex-connect.com/FlexConnect.htm

Second, is that Control I/O can now be used DIRECTLY into the DeltaV controllers. There is a new backplane that allows dual DHI or DHII connections and you keep your 1/N redundancy, etc. The only I/O necessary to "redo" is Serial based I/O, so now EIC or IDI conversions, but not a big deal, as the DeltaV Serial Interface uses the exact same silicon as the IDI and EIC, so any
"special" interfaces would be saved. The newest DeltaV controller can handle up to 320 IFC or UOC points easily. This was discussed at Users Group in 2001 in New Orleans, LA. I personally have worked on the product that is in testing today.

Lastly, FRS has created a Common Console that takes PROVOX Operator Consoles and creates a single display for 2 sessions utilizing iFIX 2.5 capabilities. This lets you maintain the complete database from PROVUE QBUS/VME/OWP to
migrate to POC, easily convert the graphics to iFIX, and use new I/O under the DeltaV "side". Thus allowing bus capabilities.

There are multiple installations of each of these to talk with other customers, and not just the readers of this forum.

The Foxboro comment was not informed or driven by a Foxboro supporter or employee as hype. I suggest you get the complete story from your local
representative regarding timing, cost, etc.

FRS has spent over $10MM in development making this a very easy solution to transition PROVOX to DeltaV in easy steps. If you know someone who went to Users Group, you should be able to get the CD with all the presentations on it.

Good luck
 
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Peter Morgan

I have had the opportunity for product evaluation purposes to convert a typical complex regulatory control IAC configuration to delta V. To my knowledge no tool exists to automate this process, however since Delta V provides a highly capable suite of algorithms and allows for the nesting of primitives in "composite" blocks (containers), the most complex IAC (or SRX) configurations can be converted with relative ease. Delta V also provides a test environment in the form of a controller emulation that allows configurations can be tested with the confidence that they will perform in the real controller.
 
Woo, I also can do so by using any kind of modern DCS (FB modular-based, like Control Studio).

For some FSTs, it is difficult to "translate" to FBD as you accomplished. So as Operations to SFC.

No upgrade, just replace.
 
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Tony Cantu www.cwinc.us

It is possible to convert most of the PROVOX configuration to Delta V, but some things are not tranferred. More work needs to be done afterwards. In the Delta V literature they claim to convert a PROVOX to Delta V in 4 days, in 4 days they will only start to begin to understand what you have. Anyone who believes they can do this in 4 days, is a liar...

Call me at 281-493-1212 or see our web at www.cwinc.us
 
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