NANO-10 and Weintek MT8050iE 4.3" Touch panel

[nealbert]

I'm having difficulty getting a NANO-10 and Weintek MT8050iE 4.3" HMIl to work together. According to the TRI PLC web site, these devices are supposed to be compatible.   I've used the 4.3" HMI on a project with an FMD88-10 PLC and that was a breeze to get working.  I've tried the default com settings of 38400, n, 8, 1.  on COMM1 (SETBAUD 11, &H06) and COMM3 (SETBAUD 13, &H06).  Changed my cable to match COMM 1 or COMM3.  Every time I boot up these devices I get a "PLC not responding" message on the HMI.

I've gone back to using Weintek's Easy Builder Pro version 5.X (the one with the TRI-PLC drivers written specifically for it.  I've copied/pasted the drivers to new versions of EB Pro, but thought I may have missed something)  I've tried the TRI_PLC driver and the TRI_FX driver.  Neither work for me.

In addition to the touch panel, I also have an Autonics TX4S temperature controller connected to the RS-485 line (MODBUS-RTU).  This device talks to the NANO-10 just fine.  However, I've noticed that when I connect the wires from the HMIl, the NANO-10 and TX4S stop talking.

Please, tell me what I'm overlooking.

Thanks in advance.
Neal Cooper

[garysdickinson]

Neal,

You have 3 devices connected to RS485.  Not a problem.

38400 BAUD is not a problem. I use this rate between the HMI and the PLC for all my projects. 

The HMI will act as a master device to talk to the PLC and the TX4S.  The PLC cannot talk directly to the TX4S. If the PLC attempts to talk to the TX4S then you have two master devices on the RS485 cabling and this will result in garbled communication.

Disconnect the TX4S and kill off any code in the PLC that talks with the  TX4S .  Now get the HMI/PLC working.  I worry about the HMI serial interface may be galvanically isolated.  If it is you will need to run a wire between the PLC 0V power input to the HMI'S signal ground pin for the RS232 port to them on a common ground reference.

Make certain that the PLC and TX4S are configured to respond to different Modbus IDs.

If your only choice is to connect all 3 devices on a single RS485 bus, then you can have the HMI query the TX4S, periodically and them update variables in the PLC.  This can be done with the use of a macro in the HMI.

I do not use the HMI drivers that are available for the TRI PLCs.  These drivers are NOT supported by Weintek and they don’t consistently support to all of the PLC's 32 bit variables. The Weintek Modbus drivers work fine and can be configured to get the word order correct for all of the 32 bit variables for all of the TRI PLCs.

Gary d
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[support]

Neal,

The simplest way to have all three devices connected simultaneously is to use Modbus RTU over the RS485 port for your TX4S as you had been doing, and then connect the HMI to the PLC via Ethernet.

The Nano-10 and MT8050iE can be connected directly via Ethernet or through a switch. I assume you are programming the Nano over Ethernet, so you would need a switch in order to have both the PC and HMI communicating with the Nano.

Using the TRi_Fx driver, you should be able to communicate via Ethernet. Alternatively, you can use the Modbus TCP driver provided by Weintek.

[nealbert]

Sorry to be a little slow getting back to this topic.  I'm building a controller for a powder coating oven.  It's an in-house project, but gets put on the back burner when the customers need something.
Anyway, this has been a comedy of errors on my part...telling the MT8050iE to talk to the Nano-10 thru COM3 on the PLC (when there is NO COM3 on the PLC), Building the RS-485 cable to use COM3 on the HMI, when apparently it prefers to use COM1 (I still haven't figured out how to tell the HMI to use COM3, since there's no way to change the HMI Interface in EB Pro) and lastly, throw in a few used NANO-10 purchased off eBay with unknown history.  Whenever I did get the PLC to talk the HMI it was only for a few seconds.

Fast forward to yesterday and I broke out a brand new, in-the-box NANO-10.  I also downloaded the HMI and PLC demo software that is in the file MT8050iE_Demo_and_Guides.zip available at https://triplc.com/mt8050ie.htm .  Fixed my RS-485 cable to be on COM1 of the HMI, installed the demo software in the HMI and PLC.  Viola, it worked!  PLC and HMI are talking.  So, then I got brave because I wanted to see indicators change on the HMI.  I added 2 lines of code, INPUT_3-------OUTPUT_3 and INPUT_4-------OUTPUT_4.  Already had switches on INPUTS 3 and 4.  Download the modified program to the PLC.  Boom, they stopped talking again.  I give up!

So, I took your advice...HMI and PLC are talking over Ethernet.  Temperature controller is talking to PLC over RS-485.  Everything seems to work.

Two questions though.  When I'm done programming, can I remove the switch from the equation and just have the NANO-10 connected directly to the MT8050iE thru a straight (or cross-over) Ethernet cable?
I occasionally get the "PLC no connection" message popping up.  Only pops up for a second and only when I'm doing something on the HMI that changes a variable in the PLC.  Is this normal?  I never saw that with the FMD88-10 and MT8050iE combination.

Thanks,
Neal

[garysdickinson]

Neal,

Good to hear that you have gotten stuff to work. 

I don’t know the answer to your question about connecting two Ethernet devices together with a single cable.  In the old days this required a cross over cable. However in modern times most Ethernet transceivers will work with cables that have the paired signals reversed.  Give it a try.

Another thing you can do is to put all of your devices on RS485.  The HMI will be the master and can access registers and coils in both the PLC and the temp controller.

As an example, I have a client that uses an FMD (integer PLC) with a Weintek HMI. The PLC needed to solve a complex bit of math that was best done in floating point.

The solution was to use DM32[] to hold the data to be processed and to hold the results. 2 PLC RELAYS were used. One to request that the HMI PROCESS the integer data. The second RELAY was set by the HMI after the data was processed and the results had been written back into DM32[].

In your application you could have the HMI poll your Temp controller periodically and update PLC registers with this data.  You could have the HMI program the temperature controller on request of the PLC.  Same approach, PLC data and one or two RELAYs for handshake.

If this craziness is of interest, l can post how to write a periodic HMI macro.

Gary d