Allan Bradley PowerFlex 40 Networking Problem

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Saturn_Europa

Saturn_Europa

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Fishing Industry
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Electrician Limited License NC, QMED Electrician
The polymer room in my solids facility flooded today. Unfortunately, the PLC/VFD control panel is inside the containment area. Luckily the VFDs are lower than the PLC and when the VFDs blew up the operators responded to the alarm and found the flooded room. A 3" schedule 80 PVC ball valve split in half, so it was quite the flood.

Installed new drives and set the parameters no problem and we all were standing around feeling proud of ourselves until we noticed the the Hertz were dead at the minimum VFD speed and would not speed up no matter the HMI set point.

I went online with the PLC and the program was calling for the drives to ramp up. After about 30-40 minutes it kind of dawned on me. New drives, new network card, I need to set the IP address and subnet. I'm old school and cut my teeth on 4-20 mA analog speed command and 4-20 mA speed feedback. Networking drives is brand new to me. Its compact logic to AB drives and the drives are right there in my RS Logix 5000 program but there is no communication of course.

I pulled up the manual and it said to download BOOTP server. When I launch BOOTP server, it opens correctly but there are no devices listed, and there are no MAC addresses listed. Do I need to set up my laptop to a specific IP address to be able to see the new drives? I tried to go through an unmanaged switch and also plug directly into the drive. Neither worked.

After wasting about 2 hours on it tonight I had to throw in the towel. I am hoping some of the VFD gurus on this site can point me in the right direction. Unfortunately, I do not have part numbers or model specs with me. All that stuff is at work.

Windows firewall is turned off. Do PowerFlex40s come with a default IP address?
 
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Powerflex 40 drives don't come with an Ethernet card. It is a separate card you have to add. There is an RJ45 port on powerflex 40 drives but it is not ethernet. I forget what the part number is. Maybe a 20-comm-e.
 
petersonra said:
Powerflex 40 drives don't come with an Ethernet card. It is a separate card you have to add. There is an RJ45 port on powerflex 40 drives but it is not ethernet. I forget what the part number is. Maybe a 20-comm-e.
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You are correct. It's a 20-comm-e or something very close. I installed it a new card with the new drive.
 
Saturn_Europa said:
You are correct. It's a 20-comm-e or something very close. I installed it a new card with the new drive.
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I looked it up. It is a 22-comm-e.

A couple things to try.

I have noticed that some of the AB Ethernet products don't send out their MAC ID for the BootP server to find except when the card boots up. I think it eventually will send another request but it can be several minutes. Have you tried running the bootp server first than powering up the drive? If you do and don't get anything, it is a good bet that the ethernet module already has been assigned a static IP address unless there is something wrong with your bootp server.

If you have a HIM module for the drive you can set the IP address from the HIM module.

You might also want to check in RSLinx in the EthernetIP driver under RSWho and see if the drive is there. That can tell you what the IP address is if it is in the same subnet as your computer. I think you can use RSLinx to change the IP address if you can see it there.

Incidentally, if you have WiFi on the bootp server I would turn it off while you are trying to run bootp. Otherwise you can sometimes see stuff from the WiFi side that might be asking for an IP address.

make sure the LED on your laptop ethernet port comes on when you plug into the drive. that indicates a hardware connection is made. It does not indicate any actual communication but it pretty much shows the cable is working and you have valid ethernet devices on both ends.
 
Thank you everyone for their replies. I'm going to call Tech Connect first thing Monday morning. I plan on waiting on hold for an hour with the Drive division, then having the drive tech transfer me to the network department. Then the network guy will say "that really sounds like a question for our Drive division."

I'm hoping to figure it out without having to resort to buying a HIM that will just sit on the shelf.
 
If there was no BOOTP server running in the original installation then the drives were probably given fixed IP addresses.

Since you mentioned RSLogix 5000 I'd suggest following these steps beginning on page 5: http://www.columbiamachine.com/docs/knowledge-base/powerflex_setting-up-an-ip-address.pdf

I would think the previously used IP addresses should already be available in RSLogix (step 7 on page 7?) and you should be able to push those to the replacement drives.
 
Rampage_Rick said:
If there was no BOOTP server running in the original installation then the drives were probably given fixed IP addresses.

Since you mentioned RSLogix 5000 I'd suggest following these steps beginning on page 5: http://www.columbiamachine.com/docs/knowledge-base/powerflex_setting-up-an-ip-address.pdf

I would think the previously used IP addresses should already be available in RSLogix (step 7 on page 7?) and you should be able to push those to the replacement drives.
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Rick, thank you for the post.

Thats kind of the problem. I cant set up a communication path to pushout the IP addresses for the new network cards. New network cards do not come with static default IP address they require BOOTP server to assign them or a HIM to manually enter an IP. AB PowerFlex 40s dont allow any network programming without an interface.

I just talked to a guy and he said I probably need to cycle power to the drive/network card. That most BOOTP devices will broadcast their MAC addresses constantly on power up then delay the broadcast if they dont get a hit in the first few hours. He also said to use an unmanaged switch and nothing else on the network with the WiFi on the PC turned off. He said BOOTP server should pick up the MAC right away. I am crossing my fingers. Its one of those things that you only learn from experience I guess. Hopefully, Ill be able to knock it out first thing Monday morning.

Ive also heard you can use command prompt to program a device using just a MAC address. I might give that a shot also.
 
Solution to the problem:

Cycle power to the drive. The 22-comm-e card only broadcasts its MAC address on boot up.

Thank you everyone that posted.
 
Rampage_Rick said:
Duh... :ashamed1: I've had something similar happen years ago with an old plotter. Ancient HP print server only supported BOOTP instead of the more modern DHCP, had similar grief getting it running.
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Right!! That was three hours of my life I'll never get back. Stupid thing, I was ready to call in an airstrike on that darn drive.

But now I am qualified to work at a PC help desk "sir, have you tried restarting the computer?"
 
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