The Craftmans Shop > New from Old
The Sequel - Oh Blimey I bought a CNC Lathe (Beaver TC 20)
awemawson:
Before Parcelforce delivered the CPU card I had started an intensive review of why the 'cracked' version of STEP5 PLC software wasn't loading. Now I would not normally entertain 'cracked' software, but STEP5 has been updated to STEP7 by Siemens and they had given me an official copy to try, but sadly STEP7 cannot talk to this particular PLC, and oddly Siemens can't provide a copy of STEP5 so I felt 'sort of' justified. Even so, these things can be lethal to down load with all sorts of nasties embodied. So with full virus protection and a pair of rubber gloves on, I 'had at it' :clap:
It looks as though I had miss-understood the instructions, which seem to be a translation of the original German, into Russian, then into English. Anyway cutting a very long story short, I have managed to get some form of STEP5 running on my Panasonic Toughbook CF-52 under Windows XP-Professional.
The CF-52 has a proper serial port, but there lies my next hurdle. I can't find any way of setting up the communications parameters in STEP5 let alone set up the 820T controller to know that it has a PLC monitoring program on the other end of it's RS232 cable !
I can see some considerable googling happening this evening and rather a lot of :coffee: and :scratch: and more :coffee:
Pete.:
Do you know if it uses a standard serial cable or null-modem type Andrew?
awemawson:
I'm pretty sure the cable I already use to up and download the files to the 820T from my desktop will be fine Pete. It's a question of putting the controller in a state whereby the serial port is 'looked at' and 'talked to' by the STEP5 program. Early versions of programmers that talk to this controller used 'current loop' and ran under CP/M but I know that although the 820T is fully capable of being set up for current loop, later programmers used RS232 as per the up and down loading.
The real issue at the moment is getting STEP5 to know about ANY interface, never mind the wrong one! I suspect that possibly there are some windows drivers needed. The port on the CF-52 exists, XP-Professional knows it's there, and I've used it to talk to the 820T controller for loading and downloading.
The STEP5 program is very 'DOS Looking' and I think thereby lies the issue !
awemawson:
For any one passing this way who is familiar with STEP5 software and can offer help, this is the version information:
awemawson:
Progress comes in tiny little bits after expending hours faffing about :lol:
At last I've found the bit in STEP5 that lets me select the correct COM port (COM2: on this laptop) - now the book of words for the 820T controller doesn't directly refer to STEP5 talking to it's interface, but it does refer to "PD/PG Programming Workstation" and gives me parameters for the interface (4800 baud, 8 data, 2 stop bits, no parity, flow control via XON/XOFF) and gives a 'device code 3' in the setting bits so the controller knows what it's talking to. What it doesn't say is what I need to do at the controller to start the two talking ! At the moment I've just experimented in the 'data-in start' mode.
Using XP's Device Manager to set the COM port to match and thrashing about again in STEP5 I find a bit where the PLC can be set ONLINE from it's current 'OFFLINE' state. If I do this it give me a message saying that it's checking the interface, but then comes up with a red error message "System Message no. :0334"
Is this progress - yes I think that it is of a sort - the STEP5 program is at least acknowledging that is has a port to talk to but presumably doesn't like what's being whispered in it's ear !
The major issue is that I have no documentation for STEP5 and haven't so far been able to find a source.
. . these things grind VERY slowly . . . .
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