Internet PLC Forum

This thread has now been moved to the Frequently Asked Questions board:

http://www.tri-plc.com/yabbse/index.php?board=2;action=display;threadid=1688

Question is not for TRi's PLC.

http://www.tri-plc.com/yabbse/index.php?board=5;action=display;threadid=1650

All TRI-PLC with built-in Ethernet can send email via the SMTP server provided by the ISP which typically do not require authentication (since the ISP knows from the IP address whether the machine attempting to send email is one of its subscriber). However, if your ISP happens to insist on authentication before it will allow sending email via its SMTP server, then you may not be able to send email directly through this ISP.  

Fortunately, the TLServer version 3.15 software that is included in your i-TRiLOGI software package does have the option of authenticated SMTP connection, and you can route your PLC's email via the TLServer using the <REMOTEFS> tag. The following are the step by step instructions:

1. Setup Authenticated Emailing with TLServer

    * Start TLServer on the PC in which it will run 24/7.
    * Goto "Setup Emails"
    * Enter the SMTP server and port number of your outgoing mail server (default port is 25).
    * Enter the username and password for your SMTP server authentication.
    * Click on "Test" to test the settings. You will need to enter a destination Email address.
    * Close the Setup Emails window to enter the settings.
    * Contact your ISP if you don't know any of the above details. See the Setup Emails section of chapter 3 in the TL6 Programmers Reference Guide for more information.

2. Setup Port Forwarding for the Network that the PC running TLServer is on

If the TLServer is not on the same local area network as the PLC, then the TLServer must be made accessible to the Internet to receive TCP/IP request from remote PLCs in order to process email on behalf of the PLCs.

    * The network that the PLC running TLServer is connected to must have port forwarding setup so that remote clients (PLCs) can connect to TLServer.
    * You will need the IP address and port number shown on TLServer (the one you will be running 24/7)
    * Follow the instructions from the "Accessing The PLC from Internet" Section of the F-series or Nano-10 user manual (chapter 2.8 or 2.7 respectively) to setup port forwarding.
    * Contact your IT administrator if you are unsure.

3. Program a Remote PLC to Send an Email

You will need the following information in your program:

    * Internet IP address. This is provided by your ISP for the network that TLServer is running on. This is not your PLCs IP address or TLServers IP address.
    * Port number that TLServer is using. This is shown on TLServer. This is not the SMTP port number that you setup for Emails in TLServer.
    * Email address of the recipient. The sender Email address is not important but must be valid.


Use the following code in a custom function. Once the function is executed, the Email will be sent (with your specific settings of course).

PRINT #4 "<RemoteFS 192.168.1.180:9080>" 'make a remote connection to your Internet IP address.
PRINT #4 "<EMAIL recipient@email.com>" ' replace with your destination email
PRINT #4 "SENDER: sender@email.com"   ' should be a valid server address
PRINT #4 "SUBJECT: Email sent by your PLC"
PRINT #4 "I am a TRiLOGI PLC"      
PRINT #4 "This is a Hello Message"
PRINT #4 "</>"      ' end the email.
PRINT #4 "</RemoteFS>"    ' end the remote connection

Note that the IP address used in the above code should be replaced with the Internet IP address and the port should be the one used by TLServer (default is 9080). If port forwarding is setup correctly, a PLC should be able to connect remotely over the Internet using the Internet IP address of the location where TLServer is running and the port number which will be forwarded to the local IP address of the TLServer (the IP address that TLServer shows)

Also note that the above code does not do any error checking so you won't know if it is successful unless you physically see the Email. You can improve the code by adding error/status checking. You can also look at the TestEthernet.PC6 program for more examples on sending Email and making remote TLServer connections.

Question moved to General discussion because it was not a TRi PLC related topic.

http://www.tri-plc.com/yabbse/index.php?board=5;action=display;threadid=1523

Some users who have their java upgraded to JRE 1.6 face a problem that the RELAY table and sometime certain range of other I/O tables display garbled image instead of proper I/O label. One example is as shown below:



We have so far determined that this problem is caused by either a bug in the JRE 1.6 or a bug in the Windows XP Direct X driver.  Hence the problem seems to occur only to a small number of users of Windows XP SP2 or SP3 (most who reported similar problem are using Dell PCs). When the user uninstalls JRE 1.6 and re-install JRE 1.4.2 that are shipped with the i-TRiLOGI software the problem would disappear immediately.

Further testing on a system that we have come across showed that if you disable the Hardware Accelerator in the DirectX 3D driver the problem would also disappear. What you need to do is to go to the Control Panel and find the DirectX driver (if there is one), open it up, click on "Direct 3D" tab, then uncheck the "Allow Hardware Accelerator" check box. Then click "OK". Restart i-TRiLOGI and check the RELAY table to see if the entire table will be displayed properly.


That is to say, if you face similar problem, you can either:

1) Downgrade JRE 1.6 to earlier version, or
2) Disable hardware accelerator in the Direct X driver.

So far all users who faced similar issue as described above have managed to resolve it by downgrading to JRE 1.4.2. If you prefer to keep JRE 1.6 then you can try to disable hardware acceleration in the Direct X or try disabling some hardware settings in the Direct X driver. Please email support@tri-plc.com if you manage to solve the problem with other methods.
 
TIPS

One of our users Mr  Brian Sorbe has kindly provided the following tip for launching the Direct X settings window:

"Typically on XP machines, the easiest way to launch the directx settings is to simply press start, run, and type in 'dxdiag' and that launches the direct x mod page."

For users who must keep the JRE 1.6 (probably because some applications require JRE 1.6 and will not work on 1.4.2) but encountered the garbled I/O table issue, please try to disable the Direct3D hardware acceleration to eliminate the problem.

We are pleased to announce that a special web page has been setup to present some application notes on using our PLC in various applications. Sample source code and detailed explanation are included for free download.

To view the application notes, please mouse over the menu tab on this website:

 "Application -> Application Notes"

Currently 5 new application notes have been presented. More application notes will be added as we develop and test sample PLC programs for various applications. We welcome suggestions for common applications that you feel was not yet clearly explained by the Programmer's reference, or covered by the sample programs included with TRiLOGI software or FAQ board in the forum page.

In older days where M-series PLCs were programmed with DOS version TRiLOGI, there was an option in DOS TRiLOGI to put a transfer password into the PLC to prevent accidental overwriting of  PLC program.

This original transfer password protection scheme has been abandoned when Windows version of i-TRiLOGI was introduced in 2001 to avoid confusing user with too many different password schemes (such as TLServer login password,  and host link access password control by the TBASIC SETPASSWORD statement).

Under normal operation the PLC would not ask for transfer password. However, if there is a power glitch that corrupts or damages the EEPROM then there is a possibility that a password area inside the EEPROM has been written with some random data and the PLC thinks that a transfer password has been set and will request for it when you try to transfer a program to the PLC.

To clear the transfer password, enter the following command string into the TLServer's Serial Port Setup screen:

  @01$cKILL00*

(This is assuming that the PLC ID = 01, please subsitute with your PLC ID if it is not 01). This command will delete the transfer password and clear the program. The PLC will return a response string when the above command is accepted and then you should be able to transfer program to the PLC.

If the above procedure does not clear the password then there is a possibility that the PLC's EEPROM is damaged and it need to be replaced. Please contact Tech support to purchase spare part.

Although TBASIC doesn't support floating point, you can still display numeric with decimal point on the LCD easily. This will be useful if you are using fixed point arithmetic where an integer unit represent a fraction of the real number.  For example, if every unit represent 0.01 degree, then a quantity 228.66 will be represented as 22866.

To display DM[1] with two decimal places, do the following:

SETLCD 1,1, STR$(DM[1]/100)+"."+ STR$(DM[1] mod 100,2)