Please tell us what your experience has been with Do-more...

[BobO]

Actually, the cleanest implementation I've seen is AB, at least for bits.  Right click on a contact, and Force On, Force Off, and Remove Force are in the context menu.  Love it.  It's been there for decades and they haven't got sued for it that I know of.  Course AB's legal department may be slightly larger than Hosts!   

I'm less allergic to that because it requires two clicks. It would actually be very easy to do it that way, at least for bits. In the interest of keeping the context menu smaller, I might be inclined to put the force options you describe on a 'Force' sub-menu. It would still be a single click on the menu, but you would have to mean it if you went to a second menu layer. In addition to 'Force On', 'Force Off', and 'Unforce', we could also do a 'Toggle State', which would be smart enough to toggle both a forced and unforced value.

[Controls Guy]

I'm less allergic to that because it requires two clicks. It would actually be very easy to do it that way, at least for bits. In the interest of keeping the context menu smaller, I might be inclined to put the force options you describe on a 'Force' sub-menu. It would still be a single click on the menu, but you would have to mean it if you went to a second menu layer. In addition to 'Force On', 'Force Off', and 'Unforce', we could also do a 'Toggle State', which would be smart enough to toggle both a forced and unforced value.

Oh yeah, I don't think I'd want a UI where you could force with a single click.  I'm sure the disasters would  commence just about immediately.  It's not the end of the world, but I'm not crazy about the force sub-menu, cause you're now back up to three clicks.  Oh, and toggle without forcing is also on AB's context menu (and there's a hotkey as well).

Anyway, even at three clicks it's way better than the gauntlet of agony you have to endure in DirectSoft to convince it you actually want to force something in a DL Classic CPU.

[BobO]

Anyway, even at three clicks it's way better than the gauntlet of agony you have to endure in DirectSoft to convince it you actually want to force something in a DL Classic CPU.

Actually it would only require 2 clicks. A one second hover on the sub-menu opens it.

And I think you can change a value in DSP with a double-click followed by a single click. It ain't that hard. Unless you are referring to the override feature (Koyo's force-esque feature)...in which case, yeah, that's a pain.

[Controls Guy]

And I think you can change a value in DSP with a double-click followed by a single click. It ain't that hard. Unless you are referring to the override feature (Koyo's force-esque feature)...in which case, yeah, that's a pain.

I was talking about the overrides.  Yeah, it reminded me of the Preventer of Information Technology in Dilbert.  Like they dinged the salary of the guy who wrote the UI every time someone successfully managed to force something, so he designed it to be as convoluted and painful as possible.

Even the set bit dialog feels cumbersome.  Not sure why, like you said, it's just two actions.

[Controls Guy]

And to me, while it's not technically a click, a hover is just as bad.  You have to focus your attention three times and make three motions with your hand, so it's three actions, even if you don't have to click all three times.

But -- like I said, even at three actions it's far superior to the overrides in DS.

[Captain Koyo]

I haven't had a chance to go for a full blown project yet, but I definitely like the environment.  I would like to see the ability to have local expansion I/O using D2-EM & D2-CM expansion. 1-2 Additional racks would be great.

On another note, when I insert an ERM in the I/O rack, it gives a choice for H2-ERM100, in addition to H2-ERM and H2-ERM-F. I cannot find the H2-ERM100 at ADC.  Is this coming soon, and, what are the chances of seeing H4-EBC100's.  Do-More will be great as an upgrade controller for legacy systems where we've supplied both D4-450 & D2-260 CPU's to be replaced by the existing H2-EBC100 and a "hopeful" H4-EBC100.

Keep up the good work, keep the faith.

I appreciate your boldness to proclaim the Source of all blessing!

[BobO]

I would like to see the ability to have local expansion I/O using D2-EM & D2-CM expansion. 1-2 Additional racks would be great.

We were concerned about the performance limitations and chose not to support the EM/CM. We are currently developing a native Ethernet remote master function on the DM1E. It will be part of the upcoming 1.1 release, hopefully soon. Unlike the EM/CM, the Ethernet remote I/O function will be very high performance and will fully support the CTRIO. It will also allow mixing I/O platforms...any EBC100 variant will work with it.

On another note, when I insert an ERM in the I/O rack, it gives a choice for H2-ERM100, in addition to H2-ERM and H2-ERM-F. I cannot find the H2-ERM100 at ADC.  Is this coming soon, and, what are the chances of seeing H4-EBC100's.  Do-More will be great as an upgrade controller for legacy systems where we've supplied both D4-450 & D2-260 CPU's to be replaced by the existing H2-EBC100 and a "hopeful" H4-EBC100.

We are definitely doing an H2-ERM100, although the 405 is a little harder to say. We have talked about doing an H4-EBC100 and an H4-DM1E. We'll see.

I appreciate your boldness to proclaim the Source of all blessing!

It defines us. Of course there needs to be a balance in business and we want to be known for the quality of our work, but there is no doubt in my mind that our creativity comes from the Master Engineer.

[plcnut]

I appreciate your boldness to proclaim the Source of all blessing!

It defines us. Of course there needs to be a balance in business and we want to be known for the quality of our work, but there is no doubt in my mind that our creativity comes from the Master Engineer.

One of the reasons I love to use Host's products! Quality, Real people, Like-minded boldness for old-fashioned Faith!

PC is killing us!

[plcnut]

I voted for the only PLC I would ever use.

I was a little bit intimidated by the idea of learning a new control environment... until I tried it... and it has been a GREAT changeover! I dread opening DS5, although DMD is so similar, DS5 seems clunky already. The Programs/Tasks make for a much more organized system, and I really like the Project Browser with the option for viewing which program, task, or stage is active at any time in one small view. Also the User defined Structures and the ability to adjust memory ranges is super! Another great tool is the DMLogger, it is super when designing/tweaking a custom protocol, and seeing what the PLC is actually seeing, simple to use to.. just turn it on .
Thanks for the great product!

[jwbaker3]

 We build machines and systems for other people, so we are told what hardware to use on some of them. (Some customers only have AB or GE or Siemens, etc. in the plant and will not except anything else) If we have a choice or input into the hardware we normally spec AD. The hardest sell is the people that only know one system, it's like the old saying "if someone is good with a hammer everything looks like a nail". I have had quite a few hard line AB and GE guys impressed with AD when we show them how it works, and if they have to pay for the hardware/software even more so. As for the DoMore I think it is a huge step in the right direction, there is a little learning curve (for us old guys) but I really like the system.  I have been programming AD for almost 20 years, it's hard to forget octal based numbering and BCD math.(ha,ha, not really)  Now you need to get the 06 with the same capability with a built in Ethernet connection. Over all we use about 60% AD hardware,(With the DoMore we hope to increse that percentage) of that about ~75% are 205 systems, (we will use DoMore from now on) ~20% are 06 systems, (we need a DoMore system for this) ~4% PAC's and ~1% or less 05's and clicks(These systems are stand alone and small I would make this the lowest on the DoMore change over timeline) We dont use the 305 or 405 systems.

Thanks for a very good product at a very good price.

JW

[odwyerpw]

Any firmware updates available for the older EBCs so that they will play with either the Built-in ethernet remote master or the eventually to be released DMcompliant ERM100 remote master? I have a fully populated 3 rack system (27 slots)... so an ERM in the base...and an EBC in each of the racks.

All of that said..it's the serial interfaces that have my attention at the moment.... have some parts on order.... I'll let folks know what I've found to do with it eventually (I'm not good....but I sure am slow).

Peter

[BobO]

Any firmware updates available for the older EBCs so that they will play with either the Built-in ethernet remote master or the eventually to be released DMcompliant ERM100 remote master? I have a fully populated 3 rack system (27 slots)... so an ERM in the base...and an EBC in each of the racks.

The current plan is that the onboard Ethernet master will work only with EBC100 variants running Do-more aware firmware. There are a couple of reasons for this, but it mostly related to the fact that we added several new features to support the onboard master...and the old EBCs were full. The new ERM100 will support all EBCs, and unlike the original ERM, is Do-more aware and writes to Do-more memories rather than DL guest memory.

[odwyerpw]

Fully understand... have to cut bait sometimes... DL205 platform has had amazing longevity... can't drag all of the bits n' pieces into the brave new world.

Will there be firmware updates for existing EBC100s? (I have one of those kicking around...but didn't want to mix it with my existing ERM/EBC setup)..

[BobO]

Fully understand... have to cut bait sometimes... DL205 platform has had amazing longevity... can't drag all of the bits n' pieces into the brave new world.

Will there be firmware updates for existing EBC100s? (I have one of those kicking around...but didn't want to mix it with my existing ERM/EBC setup)..

There will definitely be firmware updates for existing EBC100s!

[Controls Guy]

So from the point of view of the Do-More, will ERM100's with remote EBC's be a transparent I/O expansion like the native port, or will it still map to memory like current ERM/EBC systems?