Created Date: March 31,2011

Created by: clintonp

ECOM100 IBOX help -- venting

I don't understand why ADC doesn't let us use variables to do ECOM100 setup. If you can stuff a constant into an IBOX, why can't you use a variable? Why would I want to hard-code the IP address? Wouldn't it be lovely to have a set-up screen in the application that allowed ECOM setup, rather than using NetEdit? I just don't get it. I suppose there's a great logical reason, but I sure don't see it...

Paul in Wisconsin

Created Date: March 31,2011

Created by: franji1

You 're just getting lucky that it works. The Workspace registers MUST be COMPLETELY DIFFERENT (this is the internal state variable of the INSTRUCTION).

Your ECOM100 Config instruction must be at the TOP of your ladder program, before ANY Stage instructions. You can then use the ECRDIP within a stage, but you must keep the stage active until it is complete (either successfully or in error).

The ECOM100 Configuration instruction MUST EXECUTE EVERY SCAN, and hence must NOT be in a stage, subroutine, etc. It monitors the slot's busy and error bits and must be able to look at them BEFORE ANY other instruction has a chance to tweak the slot's SP bits (i.e. RX/WX or any of the other EC* IBoxes).

Created Date: March 31,2011

Created by: clintonp

You 're just getting lucky that it works. The Workspace registers MUST be COMPLETELY DIFFERENT (this is the internal state variable of the INSTRUCTION).

Now that's just fascinating. I find it remarkable that the READ IP box only started to work when I gave the two boxes the same WORKSPACE location.

Up until now I 've only shoved in the ECOM100 and let the user's SCADA system read a handful of locations to get system statuses. On this version, I'm going to have to poke their timeserver to get the time, and set my time accordingly, so I'm going to need the comm instructions to work. Thanks so much, Franji, for providing this concise information!

Paul in Wisconsin

Created Date: March 31,2011

Created by: clintonp

OK, just before I hit 'submit New Thread ' I thought I'd try one more experiment, and it worked. Since I 've already typed all this in, I thought I'd go ahead and share the question -- and the answer:

I 've never used I-BOXes before. I thought that there was no way to change or view the IP address of the H0-ECOM100 from the PLC, but it looks as though IBOXes make those things possible. I'm trying to read the IP address of the ECOM, and I'm not succeeding.

In the course of trying to make it work, I have moved my two IBOXes to S0 (my ISG). I have:

ECOM100 Config IB-710

ECOM100 # K0

Slot K2 (it's in slot 2)

Status V3131

Workspace V3132

Msg Buffer V3133-V3233

Then I have a 'not SP0 ' contact (just to be exactly like the documentation) controlling:

ECRDIP

ECOM100 # K0

Workspace V3124

Success C1055

Error C1056

IP Address V3125-V3130

aka:

ISG S0

ECOM100 K0 K2 V3131 V3132 V3133

STRN SP0

ECRDIP K0 V3124 C1055 C1056 V3125

Dip switch 7 is set ON on the card. When I restart the PLC, the IP address buffer V3125 remains blank, and neither the Success nor Error bits set.

What am I missing?

Thanks for any comments,

Answer: The two IBOXes must have the same Workspace address. That was not obvious to me from the documentation. In fact, the documentation for ECRDIP states, "The Workspace parameter is an internal,

private register used by this IBox and MUST BE UNIQUE in this one instruction and MUST NOT be used anywhere else in your program. " Apparently that's a bit of an overstatement...

Paul in Wisconsin