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Messages - support

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106
Technical support / Re:Webserver and excel link on startup
« on: June 06, 2018, 09:06:11 PM »
What is the MS Excel version?

Excellink communicates using a Java DDE client libary that makes connection with the MS Excel. The problem is that it is hard to pin point where the communication is lost. Is it from ExcelLink, the DDE client library, DDE server on the MS-Excel or Excel itself.

When you lose communication, would restarting the ExcelLink solve the problem? If not, do you have to also restart the MS Excel to resolve the problem?

If you reduce the number of active programs running on your computer to just ExcelLink, MS Excel and (optionally) the TLServer, do you still lose communication often?  How long do you run the program before it starts to lose communication?


107
Technical support / Re:Webserver and excel link on startup
« on: May 16, 2018, 08:04:23 PM »
Current generation of ExcelLink and TLServer are not able to run in the background without an open window. There really isn't a demand for such a feature so far. If the program runs in the background without you knowing there are people would wouldn't like it either.

108
Technical support / Re:Stepper Motor Demo Code
« on: May 03, 2018, 01:22:19 PM »
Dear Gary,

Our team at TRi greatly appreciate all your contributions to this forum!

The well-documented examples that you provided for the other forumers are invaluable tools to help both the new comers as well as experienced hands make the best use of our PLC's capabilities.

Thank you very much!

The Tech Support team,
Triangle Research International, Inc.

109
Technical support / Re:Two PLC'S on one router
« on: April 23, 2018, 11:35:20 AM »
Unfortunately the PLC node name defined in i-TRiLOGI is not recognized by the DHCP server and thus it is not displayed. So only the MACID should be used to identify the PLC.

In PLC application it is often better to use a static IP address. The DHCP IP address can change when the router loses power for some time. So if you want to use DHCP you should do an IP address reservation in the router so that the router will always assign the reserved IP address to the PLC. The reservation table inside the router often allows you to define a name for the device that you reserve the IP address. This is where you can put in a meaningful name.

The following picture is captured from a Cisco router that shows you where you can define the name of the device.

110
Technical support / Re:Two PLC'S on one router
« on: April 07, 2018, 03:44:49 AM »
What is the make and model number of the router?

For some reasons it seems that either the DHCP server is sending out the same IP address to two PLCs that are requesting IP address at the same time, or that both PLCs are picking the first assigned IP address from the DHCP server.

Is this repeatable?

We will try this on a different router to see if we get a different results.

Why is your router DHCP assignment jump from 130 to 161 when two devices are requesting DHCP simulataneously? Is it because there are other devices already been assigned 131 to 160?

111
Technical support / Re:PID negative saturation
« on: March 30, 2018, 05:36:43 PM »
The controller output represent the amount of control adjustment to be added to the existing open loop output value based on the error it receives from the difference between the measured value (feedback) and the setpoint value.

E.g. if  in order to achieve a 120 lux, a lighting controller should normally output 40% (open loop value). Now when sun light shine into the area adds more light to the place and this creates a higher feedback lux reading. An error is generated because the feedback is now larger than the set point (120 lux). The error is fed into the PID loop which creates a negative output. This will result in the controller reducing its output accordingly until either the total light output is brought back to the setpoint (120 lux) or if daylight is too strong then the output may eventually be reduced to 0.  

112
Technical support / Re:Webserver and excel link on startup
« on: February 28, 2018, 08:57:49 AM »
You can create a short cut for the "C:\TRiLOGI\TL6\TLSvr32Launcher.exe"  (right click and select Send To -> Desktop).

Next drag the shortcut into Windows Startup folder and then when you restart windows the TLServer will be loaded automatically.

You may try to do the same for "ExcelLink21Launcher.exe". But usually we recommend opening up Excel software first before running ExcelLink to ensure the DDE linke can be properly established. In any case you will still need to manually click to run the ExcelLink software so there isn't a lot of advantage to launch it automatically.

113
Technical support / Re:Auto Negotiate IP
« on: February 26, 2018, 11:14:58 AM »
Note that the 0.0.0.0 IP address setting is only available to SmartTILE-Fx based PLCs (Fx1616-BA, Fx2424 and EZWire1616).

SmartTILE-Fx CPU board will only query for the IP address when it is first powered up. If the router is switched OFF then the PLC will not be able obtain a DHCP assigned IP address and therefore will become offline. It does not periodically request for IP address from the router so there should be no effect on the scan time after the PLC has been powered up.

Since in many applications the PLC is not connected to the router when in operation this design concept is to prevent the PLC wasting precious CPU cycle to query for IP address from router that it is not connected to.

For applications that are connected to a router we do recommend selecting a fixed IP address that it outside of DHCP range to ensure that the PLC is reachable regardless of when the router is powered up. Otherwise you will need an LCD display to inform user of the IP address that it obtains from the DHCP server before you can connect to it.

114
Opinions & Feedback / Re:Fantasic Tech Support
« on: February 26, 2018, 11:04:52 AM »
Thank you very much for your feedback.

Regarding documentation we will try to improve on the examples provided for each command. For us it is important to strike a balance between giving good examples without "thickening" the documentation (which can scare off new users) unecessarily. The power of the Ladder+BASIC programming language is in its simplicity one you understand how the Ladder and BASIC part work together. But at the same time because it can do so much that it will take time to master all its capabilities.  Most users may need only a fraction of what it can do and we would like to facilitate the users to be able to quickly learn what they need.

Now that all the help files for the latest i-TRiLOGI versions have now been moved online, so it will be easier for us to expand on the examples provided for the more sophisticated functions:

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

There is a thread in this forum that could be helpful for new users to follow:

http://www.triplc.com/yabbse/index.php?board=2;action=display;threadid=1817

115
Technical support / Re:SAVE_EEP
« on: February 21, 2018, 11:25:54 AM »
Which location of EEPROM do you want to save these data to?

E.g. if you want to save DM[700] - DM[704] to EEP location 100 to 105.


FOR I = 0 to 4
   SAVE_EEP DM[700+I],   100+I
NEXT

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


To load values from EEP location 100-104 back to DM[700] to DM[704]:

FOR I = 1 to 4
   DM[700+I] = LOAD_EEP(100 + I)
NEXT

116
Technical support / Re:SmartTile I2C Addressing
« on: February 19, 2018, 08:41:00 PM »
You can study the example on how to use the I2C commands from the I2C-FRTC manual:

www.triplc.com/documents/I2C-FRTC-UserGuide.pdf

The example accesses the M24M01 I2C EEPROM available on the I2C-FRTC itself which is not available on the SmartTILE but you can study the example by also refering to the datasheet of the M24M01.

I have attached another example program which is to read the RTC chip DS1338 available on the SmartTILE-Fx itself so you can experiment with it directly.

By studying these two examples you should be able to adapt them to access your own I2C device.

Note: The I2C signals go directly to the CPU so be very careful when you are interfacing with external I2C device as any wrong connection or bad voltage can damage the CPU pin directly.

On the I2C-FRTC used with the FMD PLCs there are additional I2C buffering IC to protect against damage to the CPU due to installation error. This is not available on the SmartTILE-Fx since the signal pins go directly to the CPU.

117
Technical support / Re:SETSYSTEM 16
« on: January 16, 2018, 07:47:55 PM »
SETSYSTEM 16,4 will not affect the internal OUTPUT bit. It just will not update the physical output affected by the command but the computed value will stay.

118
Technical support / Re:PRINT #4 Shutting down
« on: January 16, 2018, 07:45:10 PM »
It appears that your code exited the WHILE loop after receiving the first line and then you execute the PRINT #4 "</>" command, which then close the connection.

So you may need to change the program a bit. Yet you do not want the CPU to be stuck in the WHILE loop inside one custom function all the time. So you should implement a state machine so that the ladder program get to continue to execute and this custom function is then re-enter on the next ladder logic scan.

119
Technical support / Re:Excelink
« on: January 16, 2018, 07:40:30 PM »
Unfortunately ExcelLink is not programmable to do what you mentioned.

You may be able to program an Excel Macro based spreadsheet to retrieve the data and the macro program can then decide which other data to pull based on the result of the first set of data it retrieved. However, you do need to write the code in Excel to execute the hostlink commands interaction with the PLC via TCP/IP (Ethernet or TLServer with USB-RS232 adapter)

The following web page is a bit old but does describe one Excel spreadsheet that we wrote before using Macro to send host-link command on the PLC and process hostlink response from the PLC:

http://www.tri-plc.com/ExcelLink/ewqtoolkit.htm

120
Technical support / Re:SD card on a SmartTILE-Fx
« on: December 19, 2017, 07:55:49 PM »
Thank you for your interest in the SmartTILE-Fx. At this point there isn't any on-going development to add the SD card support as there are a few other options for data storage and transfer.

SmartTILE-Fx based PLCs are often connected to the Ethernet network and data can be written directly to a network server as they become available, so that these data can be accessed by other applications without having to physically remove the SD card to access the data.

SmartTILE-Fx also has data file space that allows you to store quite a lot of data locally on flash memory. The data file created by the CPU can be downloaded from the SmartTILE using a web browser.  Alternatively, you can also program the PLC to upload the data via FTP to a FTP server and that can automate the data collection without human intervention.

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