Foxboro DCS

Hi All,
I just wana know how reliable Foxboro DCS is when comapred to ABB M & F , Yokogawa, Honeywell, Siemens & Emerson. Could any one just help me out!

You will not get a sensible answer as your topic is far too fuzzy.
You may be able to get MTBF and such like statistics from the suppliers but to use these to get overall reliability of a system is complex and depends on the configuration of the system.

Hello Anonymus !

My opinion is that. B u did NOT write any assumption.
We have to know what kind of conditions u have.

1. Yokogawa ~ Emerson
2. Honeywell ~ Siemens
3. ABB
Foxboro

foxboro dcs is more reliable as like other DCS,
foxboro latest system has optical comm with the controller and it has interface modules with the other systems unlike using terminal server etc.

I do not have enough experience with most except for Emerson and Foxboro. Like most DCS, they have redundant networks and redundant processors (you need to specify that though). I have used Foxboro I/A on four water and wastewater plants, with the oldest over 8 years. We have not had a total failure in that time. We may lose a redundant network but the other picks up. The real issue is using a UPS to keep system going.

Additionally our machines are Unix based and not Windows. I had a choice recently but stayed with Unix. I do not want someone to think they can install some software in a PC and mess up process.

Hi there
truely speaking, its simply a great system compared to what all other systems you mentioned. Out of these I have worked ( hands on experience) on Foxboro 2.1 (AP20 series VENIX platform), Foxboro I/A 4.2 ( SOLARIS with SUN), Foxboro I/A 6.3 ( Win NT), Yokogawa CENTUM CS3000 (WinNT), MOD300 ( Taylor now ABB), TDC300 ( Honeywell), and HSMS Safety PLC , Triconex PLC, AB PLC ( both 5/40 & SLC), Siemens S7-200 and 312/314 and six diff. version upgrade of diff. system in mission critical applicaiton..

Out of various system, I admire Fox as
- Pioneer in Object Oriented Control System software, when no one new about OOPS, Foxboro gave the concept of Object to the control system world
- Highly advanced architecture,
- Very Low power consumption
- Best Analog input card accuracy level ( 0.03%! compared to those of Honeywell -0.075 & 0.51% of YBL AI Cards)
- Highly Open system, the only system, where you get tag.parameter value in real time at operating system command prompt
- Lot many AIS/API/OPC compliant world
- Freely configurable graphics ( unlike fixd format controller faceplate, trends, etc.. in other system), here you can configure each and every part of system/logic/controller graphics/trends,
- Full fledge programming support at all level including display management, alarm management, controller level, etc.. incluidng C,C++ algorithm inclusion in your PID, supervisory control
- Fully fault tolerant system with zero change over time at controller level, which no system offers... YBL Redundant system control processor like FSC or THL APM/HPM takes hell of the time during change over ( min. one cycle is gaurantted for halt)
- No limit on software fan out, means, you may connect any blocks's software parameter at "n" number of other locaitons, unlike THL TDC3000 limitations like you can connect PID.OP only at two downstream blocks, etc. etc.
- G3 level coating on all cards by default at hardware level
- Auto Tunning of all PID loop by default at control processor level, unlike 4 loop limitation per controller in THL TDC3000 that too with some engineered solution like looptune package, etc..
- There are Many more features in real technical and technological system compared to other systems...

Hi Rajesh,

I'm having some "problems" with a Foxboro DCS running venix 2.1.1.

This is the situation, nowadays in order to save the historic values of some parameters (as sensors reads or so (the ones shows up in the trend option)) "i" have to download it manually and save it to a floppy.

The idea is to make some "automatic" thing to get the files from a normal PC. My question is, is it possible to connect the pw or ap20 to some network use today like ethernet?

If so, how can it be done?

The other question is about informix, i have been digging around the vt100 of the pw and ap20 and i couldnt find any informix server running (even though it is supposed to be running) I try to use isql but no database were shown.

I would really appreciate any info you could give about this systems and the question i made you. Even if you dont have the answers any other info would be really useful, i have just get onto this system theese days and i have no clue were to start from (i have experience with linux, but this venix unix is SO different! there isn't even an ifconfig command!!!!).

Well, my mail is erne. castro @ gmail. com I would really appreciate any help!

Thanks in advance.

You haven't described the system architecture very well, but here are some options.

1) The easy way would be to add a WP51 or AW51 to the system which can be connected to second network.

2) Connect a Linux box to one of the serial ports on a com 10 and print to it.

3) Remove the VT100 terminal (if it has one,), and replace it with a Linux box, then set up a script on the Linux box that will connect and download the files.

4) Hook up with a competent Foxboro systems integrator and have them do it.

Mark

Dear erne. castro @ gmail. com

yes, you can very well fetch data from vt100 with small amount of code in "C", which i will send u by mail.

All these data real time tag.pv data, retrived in text format can be stored on a floppy, even you can generate system alarm with Shared memory variable and unix script. I will send that script to you by mail.

Regards
-r

Hello guys,

I'm interesting in Foxboro systems I/A and A2.
Do you know resource where I can download documentation and stuff?

Thanks in advance.

Eugene

At the risk of seeming obvious, have you tried http://www.foxboro.com? Foxboro also has just oodles of local sales reps all over the world who would be de-double-delighted to help you learn all about IA and A2.

Walt Boyes
Editor in Chief
Control magazine
www.controlglobal.com
blog:Sound OFF!! http://www.controlglobal.com/soundoff
_________________

Putman Media Inc.
555 W. Pierce Rd. Suite 301
Itasca, IL 60143
630-467-1301 x368
[email protected]

Foxboro is a rugged and reliable system with optical network communication (100Mbps). PID control blocks (DPID) and PLB ladder can be executed in the IO module itself (FBM219) with 10-30ms execution time.

>I just wana know how reliable Foxboro DCS is when comapred to ABB M & F, Yokogawa, Honeywell, Siemens & Emerson.<

I did a study and rejected them on the grounds of redundency capability - the numbers for single element loops are MARGINALLY better than standard BUT you dont have the capability of auto change over on failure/redundency for critical loops.