Cmore Networking

[Evilbeard]

I'm putting the finishing touches on my project (I started months ago), and I'm going through the bugs. Today, I was going through the outputs to make sure they were all assigned properly, and I smelled something getting hot. I looked up, and saw the cable going from the H2-SERIO-4 to the CMore touch panel was smoking. I quickly shut everything down. I have no idea how this happened (I'm using factory cables, etc) and I'm using the on board serial port of my DoMore to program (I smoked the USB port messing around on the bench, let's just not talk about it  ). I thought about using the Ethernet port. The issue is, I'm using an unmanaged 5-port switch to connect my DoMore to 3 GS-EDRV100 controllers for my drives. Is it possible to do this? I set the IP in the panel to 192.168.0.6 (I'm using 2 for the PLC, 3,4,5 for the drive controllers). It doesn't seem to want to connect.

Also: my GS-EDRV100 controllers are communicating fine, but I noticed the drives are flashing "Invalid Data" every few seconds. Is this an error in the drive communication settings or in my setup in the DoMore?

[plcnut]

Is everything properly grounded? Is the 0 volt leg of your 24 volt circuit grounded at the power supply? What is the part number of the cable that you fried?

[mhw]

Is it possible to do this? I set the IP in the panel to 192.168.0.6 (I'm using 2 for the PLC, 3,4,5 for the drive controllers). It doesn't seem to want to connect.

Definitely possible. Does anything populate in NetEdit?

my GS-EDRV100 controllers are communicating fine, but I noticed the drives are flashing "Invalid Data" every few seconds

This is usually caused by trying to write an incorrect value to an address in the drive. Maybe a trying to write the drive speed without having P4.00 set to 5, or writing 60 (6.0hz) as the requested speed instead of 600 (60.0hz).

[Evilbeard]

Is everything properly grounded? Is the 0 volt leg of your 24 volt circuit grounded at the power supply? What is the part number of the cable that you fried?

My DC Com was not grounded, but I was under the understanding that with new switching power supplies that wasn't needed? I went ahead and grounded it anyways now since I figured it can't hurt anything. The cable (seen here) was a EA-2CBL. It looks like it had issues around pins 1 and 2. I can make a straight cable and use port 1 on the panel if I can't get the Ethernet to work.

[ADC Product Engineer]

Any time a RS-232 cable starts smoking, you have a grounding issue.

RS-232 is a ground referenced signal.  If you have any sort of a voltage difference between the ground plane of one device and the second device, the communications cable will try to balance the difference.  If the difference is great enough, you start carrying more current than the cable can handle.  Then... well things can get serious in a hurry.

Always ground both devices to the same grounding point.  If the device has a ground connection, use it.  It is there for a reason.

Like @PLCNUT said; grounding the DC negative can be a good idea as well as it can float and cause issues at times.

This advice is for any RS-232 device including laptops and desktops.  Even using a RS-232 to USB convertor, you still need the same ground plane between devices.

[plcnut]

I spent a while trying to find a cable pinout for your cable, but came up empty...
@ADC Product Engineer: Do you have a pinout document for these cables?

[Evilbeard]

I spent a while trying to find a cable pinout for your cable, but came up empty...
@ADC Product Engineer: Do you have a pinout document for these cables?

Don't put yourself out over it, I got the Ethernet working. Now just to sort out the 1000 other bugs/mistakes I've made!

[plcnut]

Only 1000!?!? You're doing great! I wish I could do a project with only 1000 mistakes!

[Evilbeard]

Only 1000!?!? You're doing great! I wish I could do a project with only 1000 mistakes!

That's just a preliminary guess. Let's not get carried away. I still have to sort out the invalid data problem with the drives, and then we're gonna get into turret timing and speedmatching. Gonna be a fun week!

[ADC Product Engineer]

I spent a while trying to find a cable pinout for your cable, but came up empty...
@ADC Product Engineer: Do you have a pinout document for these cables?

Pinouts for C-more cables are in the C-more software help file or in the C-more Hardware manual.

[PLCGuy]

If I many say, nothing worse then compiling a complete project then trying to debug it.
I have learned by watching others try to do that. I do one section at a time, make it work then move on to another. If I have to talk to several drives, I do one at a time and make it work then move on to the other. I make sure my HMI is working. Program and debug the pump, motor section. I do this until my project is completed. Since systems can be intertwined, it is so hard to trouble shoot and debug a system with so many events going on all at once. Not sure I spelled it out all correctly, but take one section at a time. I usually start with a pencil and paper to lay out what I want the project to look like. Yes, I use a pencil and a piece of paper.

[Controls Guy]

Right, divide the project into modules with limited and well-defined interconnections.  Black boxes if you will.  Debug one box, and future problems are probably not caused by that box.  Death to spaghetti code!

[Evilbeard]

That's how I have this system setup, it's just all the little dumb things, i.e. I forgot a jumper in my terminal strip so I didn't have a common on some of my outputs. I couldn't figure out why they weren't working, and it took me 20 minutes or so of tracking things down to get it figured out. It's less design issues and more IRSTUPID issues.  I've gotten all my communication issues fixed, all my discrete inputs and outputs are working. I've mounted all my field sensors. The last thing I'm working on is my analog control. I spent 30 minutes trying to figure out whey I wasn't getting my expected output from it, only to find that my card is 16-bit output, and I wrote the scaling in the program for 12-bit. AL:KDJHFD:LKFJDF. I'm a brain fart master.

The hits just keep on coming.

[davidbgtx]

Only 1000!?!? You're doing great! I wish I could do a project with only 1000 mistakes!

I only had 999, I must be a pro. (and the program was 20 rungs long, too)
I'm fortunate to have a Test rack in my office to debug a lot before putting it on the machine. Simulator can help some too.