Device ID

[Lorne Van Dusen]

I am working on a Remote I/O setup on a FX2424 and have been searching through the manuals but I have been unable to find how to set the Device ID within the program.
I want to make sure that the Master is always 01 and that the slave PL is always 02
Is there a way during the first scan to set this value in software?

[garysdickinson]

Lorne,

You might want to look at the SetSystem statement.

Specifically  SetSystem 8, n

This is the documentation that I found:

Allow the PLC to change its own ID from within TBASIC temporarily to the lower 8-bit value provided in the "data" parameter for individual COMM port. The new ID is volatile. It does not overwrite the default PLC ID which can only be changed from a host program using the "IWxx" command.
SETSYSTEM 8, n     
COMM1:  n = &H0001 to &H00FF 
COMM2:  n = &H0101 to &H01FF    
COMM3:  n = &H0201 to &H02FF    
COMM4 (Ethernet): n = &H0301 to &H03FF
ID for the respective COMM port will be set to 01 to FF after running the above command. (only applicable to PLC with firmware r76 and above)

The documentation suggests that the changed to the device ID is "temporary".  You will probably have to run this command each time the PLC restarts.

You may, also, want to look at the Status( function. This returns some version of the PC ID.  I suspect that the value returned is the default value that was assigned to the PLC and not the temporary ID assigned with the SETSYSTEM command.

Lorne, I noticed that you are using the "Fx" series PLCs.  With my customers that use the Fx PLCs or the FMD PLCs with the RTC/256M memory card, I use the FTP server mechanism to manage PLC configuration data.  I generate an ASCII text file and upload this file to the PLC's FTP server. The PLC, periodically, checks for the configuration file and if it is found does the following with it:
1. Reads it to determine that it is valid
2. Parses out the configuration data and saves them the EEPROM.
3. Erases the uploaded file.  This indicates that the PLC processed the configuration data.
4. Writes out to a 2nd FTP file the new PLC configuration.  This allows me to check and verify the configuration of the PLC program.

I also, allow, my customer's to change configuration parameters via the HMI.  When the customer commits to the changes, the PLC will write out a new 2nd FTP file that documents the new configuration.

This 2nd FTP file can be copied from the FTP server, renamed and then used to configure other PLCs or just archived for documentation purposes.


Maybe this will help,

Gary D*ckinson

[Lorne Van Dusen]

Gary you are amazing you seem to either always know the answers or know a way to find out the answers.
My main complaint with the product as good as it is is the lack of documentation but after reading your response I found the info in the TL6 reference manual as there was nothing in the FX2424 manual
However I must admit their technical support whether through this forum of directly with their "Tech Support" is great.

[garysdickinson]

Lorne,

I've been working with the TRI PLCs for over 14 years. I, too, struggled with their documentation.

I share your option of TRI's technical support.  They are fantastic! Very, very bright people at TRI.

90% of the PLC code that I have written is test and debug code. This is the only way to figure out how some of the stuff works.  The other 10% is actual product code for clients.

My specialty is algorithms.  Let me know if you get stumped.  I've probably already written code that may be helpful.

Gary D*ckinson

[Lorne Van Dusen]

Gary it will be a sad day for everyone that's reads this forum when you stop posting and helping people.
Over the last year I have read a lot of posts and it appears that even though you yourself have asked a few questions, it seems that you answer more questions for people that just about anyone else connected with TriPLC.
I wish you many more years of being able to answer us newbee's

[support]

Gentlemen,

Thank you very much for expressing your opinions as well as kind words about TRi Tech support!

We hear your grievances about the documentation and we will think hard about how to improve them.

I guess a lot of information is sprinkled across TRiLOGI Programmer's Reference, TRiLOGI on-line Help Files and respective PLC User Manuals. So sometimes, the information may not be available if you refer to only one manual.

One solution may be to replicate some of these information to the other manuals. However, many of our PLC User Manuals already run into more than 200 pages, and we are quite reluctant to add more pages, rendering our documentation unwieldy to new users. Also, many users probably don't use all the capabilities our PLCs possess, so the current documentation tries to cover what we think many users will need for common control applications. For users who require more information on topics that involve more in depth knowledge of the PLC capabilities, we are always ready to help with email and tech support on the forum.

Instead of creating one PDF document with hundreds of pages, we probably need to move our documentation online to enable information to become searchable.  We hope to spare the resources to make that transition in the not too distant future.

Thanks again for your feedback. They are always welcome!