Internet PLC Forum

What version of CO5uploader do you have? Since version 2.3 that had been launched in 2016, the CO5uploader can be operated from the command line. Please see the command line user guide:

http://www.tri-plc.com/CO5UploaderSoftware/CO5Uploader-Command_Line_User_Guide.pdf

Hopefully this works for you.

In the next product that will be launched later this year the PLC will be able to download a CO5 file from a webserver to upgrade its own software with auto rollback in case of unsuccessful upgrade.

If you like some preliminary information about the new product please contact support@triplc.com for more details.

Hi Nathanael and Gary

Thank you for the robust discussion about getting around the 1000 table entries limit on i-TRiLOGI. You are right that the 1000 number is what we think should be more than enough for most TBASIC program and we didn't want the table to become so large that it is hard to locate a defined item.

We can consider expanding the number of allowable table entries in the upcoming release of new i-TRiLOGI version 6.7 and 7.4 with a number of user interface improvement.   How many more entries would you need in the #Define table?

What PLC model are you using?

If DIP switch #4 is ON then the PAUSE LED should stay ON and should not be flashing. If PAUSE LED keeps flashing then it looks like the PLC is being rebooted consecutively and could be a problem with the power supply.

What type of power supply? How many volts and how much current can it supply.

Try changing the power supply if you have a different power supply unit.

For efficiency reason, the integer math operands are pushed and popped from a separate 32-bit integer stack (since all integer math are 32-bit) rather than on the byte-oriented PLC program execution stack. A separate stack pointer is used to keep track of the int32 stack. The integer stack size is 16 which is very unlikely to be exceeded in regular (non-recursive) expression.

Is your integer stack overflow issue repeatable?  Is this part of the routine occurring in an interrupt service routine?

As for the runtime error it is not retrievable via Modbus.  If you trap the runtime error using the runtime exception handler as mentioned by Gary, you can either reboot the PLC or you can turn on a relay flag to indicate a runtime error and your Modbus host can monitor it via Modbus mapped relay bit.  The PLC thereafter may enter an endless loop  using statements such as   WHILE 1 : ENDWHILE  and wait for user to reboot it.

The LCD readout is actually accessible via a hostlink command but is not accessible via Modbus. Since the PLC is supposed to PAUSE after a runtime error to let user review what went wrong, only iTRiLOGI is provided with the information so that it can feedback to the programmer. 

In the next generation of PLC that we are working on we certainly are going to add a lot of useful suggestions to the PLC. In fact a user and system log utility that is available in the next PLC and i-TRiLOGI will be a very very useful feature for programmers.  Stay tune - it is going to be exciting.

What are the other controllers? Are they third party controller?

Do you know if the actual baud rate of those controllers?  Most controllers that advertise 115200 don't actually communicate at that precise baud rate but a close approximation (up to +/-3% of the target baud rate). So is the Fx PLC.  The closest baud rate that Fx PLC support is  117200 which allows it to communicate well with a PC at precisely 115200 bps. But if the other controllers actual baud rate is lower than 115200 then it is likely that the actual baud rate difference is larger than +/-3 %, which can lead to more errors.

Try to communicate at a lower baud rate if the highest baud rate don't work well.

Thank you for your report.

Please note that serial port at 230400 bps has a bit time of 4.36us.   Serial port baud rate are usually derived from CPU clock after feeding through some prescaler and divisor and hence the bit rate is often just an approximation. Since not all devices run at the same CPU clock rate the actual serial port speed would vary slightly from one family of device to another.  Asynchronous serial communication such as UART requires both devices to be within +/- 3% of the agreed BAUD rate. i.e a deviation of  just +/-0.14us in bit period would fail the communication at that speed.

We conducted some tests by setting a Fx PLC and a Nano-10 PLC  RS485 port to 230400 bps.

Individually, both the Fx and the Nano10 PLCs are able to communicate with a PC at 230400 bps without any issue in short wire range. We used an internal version of i-TRiLOGI that we can set to 230400 bps and we can sustain online monitoring with each PLC separately.

However, when we setup the Fx PLC to send hostlink command to the Nano-10 PLC at 230400bps, the Nano-10 does not appear to accept the command as per your experience at 230400.

We then setup two Fx PLCs and we are able to use one Fx PLC as master to send hostlink command to the second Fx PLC as slave and the master Fx PLC is able to sustain good communication with the slave Fx PLC.

We believe that these two different family of our PLCs may be incompatible at highest baud rate such as 230400 or even 115200. This is because the Fx PLC and the Nano-10 CPU are clocked at different speed (Fx PLCs are faster) and the timing variation between them could be large enough to cause problem.

If you wish for higher communication speed you could try with Ethernet communication. The master Fx PLC is able to connect to each Nano-10 as slave one at a time. It is likely to be faster than serial port.

This email reply to you was provided to support for this thread:

The best way is to use the STEPMOVEABS and STEPCOUNTABS commands to change and measure position around a fixed point. What you would do is move your motor to a position you would like to call zero and run the STEPHOME command.

From there you can move forward or backward using STEPMOVEABS and return the count from your zero position using STEPCOUNTABS. If you want to define a "home" position as 1000, then you can use define variables to create constant or variable values with names relevant to you (anything allowed by the define table naming conventions), and then use these as parameters for the STEPMOVEABS command.

STEPMOVEABS 1, HOME_1000, 1

It will be even more accurate if you can provide position feedback from your stepper driver to the PLC HSC inputs. STEPCOUNTABS will account for the pulses sent out of the PLC outputs, but it can't know about the actual physical movement, which requires encoder feedback from the driver itself.

The only problem is when the PLC loses power and you don't know for sure what the position of the stepper motor is when it powers up. You can always store position and home values in permanent memory, but the motor could have physically moved after power is lost and the PLC obviously can't detect that, so your power up position will be different than expected (the same problem will exist with any additional stephome command to support your request.

To resolve the issue of position loss when the PLC is powered down, you can add limit switches to zero the motor on power up and then use my solution to create fixed or dynamic home positions.

Here is a description of the STEPMOVEABS command, which you can also view online:

http://www.triplc.com/TRiLOGI/Help/tbasic/stepmoveabs.htm

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
STEPMOVEABS ch, position, r 

Purpose
   

This new command allows you to move the stepper motor # ch to an absolute position indicated by the position parameter. At the end of the move the relay #r will be turned ON. position can be between -231 to +231 .(i.e. about ± 2 x 109) steps. The absolute position is calculated with respect to the last move from the "HOME" position. (The HOME position is set when the STEPHOME command is executed). The speed and acceleration profile are determined by the STEPSPEED command as in the original command set.

This command automatically computes the number of pulses and direction required to move the stepper motor to the new position with respect to the current location. The current location can be determined at any time by the STEPCOUNTABS( ) function.

Once STEPMOVEABS command is executed, re-execution of this command or the STEPMOVE command will have no effect until the entire motion is completed or aborted by the STEPSTOP command.

See Also
   

STEPMOVE, STEPCOUNT( ), STEPCOUNTABS( ), STEPSPEED, STEPSTOP, STEPHOME

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Did you ever remove the SmartTILE-Fx CPU board from the carrier board previously?

It sounds like the SmartTILE-Fx board may have suffered some damage.

However, the best way is to request for an RMA (email support@triplc.com) and ship the PLC back to our office for testing. It is likely to be repairable unless there was catastrophic damage to the board.

Please include your company name and contact person name when contacting us. Some explanation of what the PLC underwent would be helpful for diagnosis.