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I agree with b_carlton.  The OEM if still in business should have a copy.  They may give it to you or they may want to sell it to you, but it should be well worth what they're asking in saved time for you, unless they want $10K or something.

I once had an OEM tell me they couldn't divulge the control program (on a very simple machine -- about 30 I/O plus another 30 running heaters with a repeating code block) because that was the only thing stopping everyone from cloning their machine.

Is it possible to receive data from the ECOM100 using a Visual Basic 6 application (via VB's WinSock control) in a manner similar to how (viewer.exe) does with the report by exception's C++ code?

Have you tried the original machine manufacturer for help?

I think I may be out of luck with the program documentation unless someone happened to get the back-up copy when they bought the used machine.  I've worked on this documentation-less equipment quite a bit.  It's a pain but doable if they have machine prints.  I'm hoping they do.  Thanks for the help!

The 'Family' would be 'Direct Logic 0/1/2/4/350'

The next will require more information. The '205' is a family of 2xx CPUs. You will need to determine the exact CPU (230, 240, 250, 260) and select it in the right hand column.

But you don't want to start a new project from your following lines.

You can just 'go online' with the processor and upload the existing project. But be warned, the text documentation is not stored in the PLC. The original programmer and and supplied copies would have the documentation.

Do you mean for DirectSOFT programming software to be able to program any AS-based device?  Or do you mean for the Direct Logic PLC hardware to support function as an AS- master or AS-slave?

The answer to the first question is no.  Host Engineering is currently not pursuing the 2nd one.  We do not know if Automation Direct is pursuing the second one either.  You may try asking that question on their forum.

I am working with a customer that is using a DL205.  I purchased DirectSoft5 software and I'm working on figuring out how it works.  When I start a new project, it asks me for the PLC family but I don't see 205.  Is it just an 05??  I am hoping that I can just go online with the processor and upload the existing project that is in the machine.  They purchased a used machine and want to make some modifications to it.  Hopefully this process is easy.  It generally is but if anyone had problems with this simple task, I'd love to know ahead of time!

Thanks!

Any thoughts on including the as-interface for communications in the future for directsoft?

I fitted the USB Serial Adapter to an older XP Home PC, and installed DNLoader and it works fine.
No tricks, just selected the COM port and it goes.

I can live with that.

what brand of usb-to-serial adapter are you using? Are you using the latest driver for that adapter? is it possible you're using a 32-bit driver on a 64-bit OS? or maybe an XP driver under Vista or Win7?

The reason I ask is that historically we have found varying degrees of functionality between adapters. The Gold-X adapter sold by AutomationDirect.com is one that appears to work well, we've had issues with some early versions of adapters made by belkin.

I agree that it sounds odd that DirectSOFT works and DNloader doesn't, but DNLoader doesn't use the DirectSOFT comm server. When the USB-to-Serial adapters first came out DirectSOFT had some connection issues because the adapter drivers didn't go to much effort to mimic a serial port, things like hardware handshake settings were missing from the driver. At that time DirectSOFT took issue with these 'non-standard' serial ports, so we had to relax DirectSOFT's requirements then, and the adapter drivers are now doing a much better job of fully implementing serial port functionality.

Not sure if this helps, but, just throwing it out there ...