This article introduces to OMRON PLC device driver. This article gives you a broad idea of how to use OMRON device driver with Astra.
This is broadly, tell you about the technical details and capabilities of OMRON device driver and how to use the driver. The intent of this article is to assist users of OMRON PLCs in conjunction with the Astra MMI software package. The Protocol general knowledge of OMRON PLC family is assumed. The addressing scheme is that of the programming software with some modifications which are explained. The different data type description and the addressing scheme should be understood before attempting to use the driver in the Astra project.
The driver is intended to use on one PC serial port only at a time. The optimization features described in this article can improve performance, but they are not essential for use. Below is the technical and communication detail of Astra OMRON Device driver:
When a same address is to be used for two different tags in Astra, make sure that the scan time is the same for both the tags, this ensures that the address is fetched only once for both the tags.
Use higher scan r ate whenever the application allows doing so, this ensures the critical tags with lower scan rates are fetched with minimum overhead.
The entire time of Astra project is running, the Event Logger displays the status and any errors that the program generates. The driver utilizes the Event Logger to display error messages regarding the driver. Below are the error messages, the probable cause and most likely solution to all the errors the driver can generate.
Errors displayed as strings
1. NULL Pointer for Project Path
2. NULL Pointer for Tag Table
3. NULL Handle for Data Manager
- Explanation: Internal Fatal Error
- Action : Contact Astra Support+
4. Insufficient Memory for Request Manager
5. Insufficient Memory for Transaction Manager
6. Insufficient Memory for Device Manager
- Explanation: Internal Fatal Error.
- Action : Try making more memory available for the project.
7. Cannot Page lock Tag Table
- Explanation: Internal Fatal Error.
- Action : Contact Astra support.
8. Cannot Open File PLCTAG.DAT
9. Cannot Read File PLCTAG.DAT
- Explanation: Internal Fatal Error. The input file PLCTAG.DAT does not exist or is corrupted.
- Action : Open the project in the configuration mode and close it, this process recompiles the PLCTAG.DAT file
10. Insufficient Memory for Tag
11. Insufficient Memory for Tag2
12. Insufficient Memory for Tag Container
13. Insufficient Memory for Node
14. Insufficient Memory for Node Container
- Explanation: Internal Fatal Error.
- Action: Try making more memory available for the project.
15. No Tags in the Project
- Explanation: Internal Fatal Error. The driver detected no valid tags in the project.
- Action: Recheck the project in the configuration mode. See if any tags are assigned to this particular device. See if the Node details are correct.
16. No Valid Nodes in the Project
- Explanation: Internal Fatal Error. The driver detected no valid nodes in the project.
- Action: Recheck the project in the configuration mode. See if the Node details are correct.
17. Multidrop not Supported
- Explanation: Internal Fatal Error. An attempt was made to attach two nodes on the same driver when Multidrop is not supported.
- Action: Recheck the project in the configuration mode. See if the Node details are correct.