adccommunitymod (AutomationDirect) asked a question.
Created Date: April 25,2014
Created By: Orion HE
**** This post has been imported from our legacy forum. Information in this post may be outdated and links contained in the post may no longer work.****
My scenario is apparently a tricky one. I have a set of screens on a C-more panel that is addressed to a DL205/DL260 CPU. I rebuilt all of the logic in the Do-More Designer software, using the same address scheme (C100=C100, V1057=V1057). The physical memory locations will be different and that's ok, but I want all of the internal memory addresses to match. What do I need to do to take my C-more program and "convert " it to be able to speak to the Do-More with the greatest of ease? Thanks for reading. Your knowledge on the subject is greatly appreciated.
Created Date: April 25,2014
Created by: BobO
Not a C-more expert, but it is my understanding that the Do-more driver supports all built-in memories natively. As long as you don't use user blocks for any HMI relevant data, it should be quite easy.
Created Date: April 25,2014
Created by: Orion HE
Since I have the whole project already built, the easiest way (hypothetically) would be to just change the protocol from "AutomationDirect Ecom " to "Do-More Ethernet " and be done, since all of the addresses are the same, but the software doesn't allow this. It converts all of my tags to "internal " which means I would need to convert them all back to the Do-more protocol. Any ideas? I feel like this should be resolvable by export/change values/import using spreadsheets.
Created Date: April 25,2014
Created by: scott.lawrence
F.Y.I.
when you change the protocol from DLxxx to Do-More, all tags will be set to internal. Doesn't matter if you use the same port or not.
Created Date: April 25,2014
Created by: Orion HE
Right. Is there a way to export them and set them back to the do-more protocol, then import? I feel like this should be "easy ".
Created Date: April 25,2014
Created by: BobO
Yeah...I 've heard that can be a pain.
Do-more actually speaks the DL protocol dialect, so theoretically you could have used Do-more's DL guest memories (DLV and DLC) instead of C and V, and continued with the DL driver to talk to Do-more. Note that I said "theoretically ". Having not personally used C-more in that manner I don't know for certain, and as it is, ADC tech would prefer that I not tell people this...however...we did spend considerable time and development effort to make Do-more emulate a DL260 for exactly this reason.
In the end, Do-more's native protocol is far higher performance than DL, so even though it may end up being a bit painful to convert, it really is worth doing so.
Created Date: April 25,2014
Created by: Orion HE
Hmm, how much higher is this performance?
So if I convert it, does that just mean repointing every object to the newly created do-more friendly object?
Created Date: April 25,2014
Created by: scott.lawrence
the long way...
create the Do-More device in Panel Manager with the protocol you want. Go to the Tag Name Database & double-click on a tag, edit the value of Device Name to match your Do-More. Lather, rinse & repeat, then delete the old device.
Created Date: April 25,2014
Created by: bcarlton
I believe that 'dLV ', 'dLC ' etc are just the names for the memory locations seen from INSIDE the Do-more. From the 'outside ' - the CMore HMI's perspective - the locations 'look like ' a standard DL location as far as the protocol is concerned. While I haven't done this yet I am expecting that no change would be needed.
As a note, when we have the need to convert between two different communication types (serial to Ethernet for example) we simply export the tags then import them but pointing to the changed 'dEVice '.
Created Date: April 25,2014
Created by: BobO
Hmm, how much higher is this performance?
I'm gonna get myself in trouble here...
I don't actually know, because there are two primary considerations: 1) how the PLC application packs the HMI data, and 2) how effectively the C-more team made use of Do-more's abilities.
The theoretical answer is that for apps where the HMI data is packed tight, allowing the minimum number of DL transactions, the performance of Do-more is moderately better. If the HMI data is scattered, Do-more can be dramatically faster. Do-more scan time is usually much faster for comparable apps, and that also affects comm speed.
The key point is that Do-more supports random access of all data types, in large packets. DL is a block centric access, in much smaller packets. Depending on PLC scan time and how well the DL app was optimized, Do-more comms could easily be 10x faster. How much of that shows up in practice...I'll defer to those that have done comparable apps on both platforms.
Created Date: April 25,2014
Created by: BobO
I believe that 'dLV ', 'dLC ' etc are just the names for the memory locations seen from INSIDE the Do-more. From the 'outside ' - the CMore HMI's perspective - the locations 'look like ' a standard DL location as far as the protocol is concerned. While I haven't done this yet I am expecting that no change would be needed.
That's correct Bernie.