Upgrade MARKV HMI to Windows2000

J

Thread Starter

javan

Our HMI satation is running on WINNT 4.0, with ISA ARCNET card and cimplicity version 4.01 with service pack v10. We have many problems with HMI PC motherboards, and we should change and upgrade them to new PCs that not running on WIN NT,also our new network cards are PCI ARCNET.

Is there any idea how to upgrade it to Windows 2000 for PCI ARCNET card on new PCs?

Is it necessary to update cimplicity and TCI version?
 
javan,

Unfortunately, as far as I know GE has NOT published a "compatibility" list for what versions of MS-Windows each version of CIMPLICITY (and it's subversions: Service Packs) work together, and which versions of TCI and CIMBRIDGE are required for all the versions of MS-Windows and CIMPLICITY.

They don't really want to publish that information as they really want to sell new HMIs at very dear prices, and they don't want to support older versions at all. Though, for another dear fee (yearly, I believe) they will support the current version they are selling for the period of the agreement. (The problem with that is that there are a LOT of people reporting that the upgrades GE sends are prone to cause problems for a couple of weeks after "release", requiring further downloads and patches. And, this apparently goes on monthly with each new update.)

Some people have tried, with varying degrees of success, to upgrade their versions of MS-Windows and CIMPLICITY. But, I would have to say that if no one has yet written back to this post, it's probably not possible.

The version of TCI you have would have to have a PCI ARCnet driver, and I don't know how to tell you which versions do and which versions don't.

GE Mark V HMIs are pretty poorly documented, and TCI and CIMBRIDGE are even worse documented. There might be a file called VERSIONS.DAT in the G:\DATA directory on the hard drive which you could use to find out which versions of TCI and CIMBRIDGE are in use. You might also look in G:\EXEC to see if there are any ASCII text filenames which might look like some explanations of the options available in TCI.

But, unless you could post the exact versions of TCI and CIMBRIDGE <b>AND</b> someone had tried upgrading their same versions of TCI and CIMBRIDGE and CIMPLCITY to MS-Win2000 and could offer some advice or suggestions I think it's pretty much a "try-it-and-see" (sometimes called "Plug-and-Pray") effort. You might be pleasantly surprised; then again it's always best not to expect miracles.

There are alternatives to GE Mark V HMIs. One that has been used in North- and South America, Australia and Europe is CSE Engineering, Inc's. <ITC>. The website is:

www.itc-info.us

or

www.cse-eng-inc.com

There are other Mark V HMI replacements offered by companies around the world, as well, though I'd be wary of any that use CIMPLICITY as you're still going to have the same upgrade issues going forward over the years, and they will require some type of TCI/CIMBRIDGE and/or some proprietary software to perform the same functions.
 
thank you CSA.

First we should try to upgrade our HMI PC hardware,then if necessary we could change our HMI.

Our hmi version software:
TCI:VER 1.5
CIMPLICITY:VER 4.01 WITH SP 10
CIMBRIDGE:VER 2.5
ARCNET:ISA
OS: WINNT 4.0

Because there is no ISA card and we have PCI card model PCI20U-CXB. at first i changed only ISA arcnet card to this card (PCI20U-CXB) on our hmi PC and tried to install card's driver,. found 2 type driver, NULL STACK Driver and NDIS Driver at :
http://www.ccontrols.com/arccontrol/pci20_drivers.htm.

but after install WINNT, PCI20U-CXB card, driver, and TCI, CIMPLICITY, CIMBRDGE according to instructions on a new hard disk and copy our project. in CONTROL ROOM i connected this new hmi PC to MARKV, but our project was offline yet. i checked the new card and there was no blinking on red led, so there was no exchange between new HMI PC and MARKV. I used NULL STACK Driver, then i tried to used NDIS Driver, but i can’t used according to instruction PDF, and there was some error.

So, what was wrong? driver of card or CIMBRIDGE version or another?
Which PCI20U driver is useful for this system?

This is my first step,to upgrade HMI PC hardware.
I should say again, that i changed only ARCNET ISA card to ARCNET PCI card.
 
C
I do not want to go into this too much to avoid confusion. ARCNET is a physical topology.

The drivers from CC are to allow Ethernet protocols to travel over arcnet.

The TCI(Turbine Control Interface) is what allows StageLink to communicate with the Mark V. Any other drivers only cause problems

A modern PC with onboard video, sound, etc. utilizes "Plug and Play" setting embedded in the BIOS.

The TCI is "VERY" sensitive to IRQ and ADDRESS settings.

This has been discussed on this forum before. The search function may help.
 
We can provide you perfect solution to overcome mentioned hardware and software obsolesce.

We are BNF Technology, we have upgraded Mark V HMI at many plants using our state of art ARIDES HMI system on latest computers. ARIDES HMI server will work on Windows server 2008 and clients on Windows 7. We also support our supplied system for next ten years.

With Regards,
Rajnikant Parmar
Email - [email protected]
 
ok. our hmi upgraded to win2000 with PCI arcnet card. i could do that. if anybody want that i will express how.
 
C
> ok. our hmi upgraded to win2000 with PCI arcnet card. i could do that. if anybody want that i will express how.

It is really not that hard! And has been published on this site before.
 
Hi Javan,

Did you try to change those ARCNet driver related configurations in the Control Panel-->TCI-->ARCNet Tab? Since PCI is using a different bus slot from ISA, and also the PCI20U could be using a different ARC controller from the original ISA controller (which i think using the COM90 controller), you should update its base IO address at the least.

By the way, I am working with the company who builds and sells TMOS SCADA that Michael Toecker mentioned. We have many success stories of replacing <I> and <HMI>. Please feel free to visit the product specific website at www.tmosscada.com or our corporate website at www.turbineservices.at.

Thank you and best regards.
www.turbineservices.at
 
>> ok. our hmi upgraded to win2000 with PCI arcnet card. i could do that. if anybody want that i will express how.

> It is really not that hard! And has been published on this site before.

ok, pls send me the link that you know about.
 
hi dear expert.

please explain how you did this?

Thank you.

> ok. our hmi upgraded to win2000 with PCI arcnet card. i could do that. if anybody want that i will express how.
 
Old question! Upgrading from NT 4 to Win 2000 helps tremendously. Win 2000 has device manager that allows one to view the interrupt and address settings of the arcnet card.

Once one knows this information, enter the TCI settings from Windows Control Panel to properly configure the card for GE Stagelink.
 
Please tell me how. Our HMI damaged and want to replace our computer and change arcnet to PCI slot.
please as soon as possible

>ok. our hmi upgraded to win2000 with PCI arcnet card. i
>could do that. if anybody want that i will express how.
 
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