Dear Sir,

Can anybody tell about the replacement of PCA198 ARCNET Cards used? Software is TCI, CIMBRIDGE, and CIMPLICITY. Any ISA type will be acceptable. Please help me.

 

Any ISA type will not be acceptable as ARCnet cards used by GE employ a special burst-mode architecture chip which is not present on every ISA-bus ARCnet card on the market.

ISA-bus ARCnet cards approved for use with GE Mark V HMIs are not available except from some surplus equipment providers (try Gas Turbine Controls, Inc., in Ardsley, NY, USA, http://www.gasturbinecontrols.com). They were known to have a few NOS (New, Old Stock) cards in GE Mark V HMIs which were never installed/used, and they also probably have some previously owned (used) cards as well.

Now, since you have a GE Mark V HMI you have a hope of using a PCI-bus ARCnet card. All but ther very earliest versions of TCI and CIMBRIDGE are capable of using either an approved ISA- or PCI-bus ARCnet card.

The suggestion is that you contact the OES (Original Equipment Supplier) or GE for help in determining whether or not a PCI-bus ARCnet card can be used with the versions of TCI, CIMBRIDGE and CIMPLICITY in your GE Mark V HMI. Be sure to provide all the versions of software installed in your machine. Also, there should be a lable on the side of the CPU with some information you should include (like 3Vxxxnn or similar numbers). By including as much information with your original request as you can, you will get the quickest response possible.

Or, you could purchase a proper PCI-bus ARCnet card from Contemporary Controls, Inc. (www.arccontrol.com) and get someone familiar with GE Mark V HMI configuration to assist with the change.

markvguy

 

Dear Sir
Thanks for your comment
I have another problem with my HMI.
My HMI Harddisk is developed a bad sector and same i was replaced with 40GB local available HDD
I have installed all the software (Winnt4.0, Cimpilicity 4.0, TCI 1.5, etc) After installation of all software i was statted the HMI. During the starting process the ARCNET (PCA198) Red LED blinking. After the loading of all software the RED LED not blinking, but the ARCWHO command is working and not showing the Node ID of remaining two HMI but this HMI is showing the Node ID.
Can you help me what is the problem.
I suspect the KEY number of Cimpilicity Licence is required from GE ????. Is my ARCNET card is OK.?. I m worry what to do. I'm confused.

Harsh

 

It is believed the blinking red LED indicates re-configurations are taking place, or, that the ARCnet card is trying to "establish" itself on the StageLink. It is also believed that on some ARCnet cards, once the card was "established" on the StageLink the LED was lit continuously, and on other ARCnet cards it was extinguished....

It is believed that when the ARCnet card is "established" on the StageLink and is sending/receiving data, the red LED will be extinguished and the greed LED will be flashing to indicate data is being transmitted/received.

You can verify this by looking at the other ARCnet cards' LEDs on the other GE Mark V HMIs which are properly communicating.

Before you removed the old hard-disk it is believed you should have used the CIMPLICITY "transfer license" utility, which allows a user to transfer a CIMPLICITY license from one computer to another, usually by copying some data to a floppy disk, and then installing the floppy disk in the other computer and allowing CIMPLICITY to find the license information. (Don't do this with one of the other running GE Mark V HMIS!!! Once a license is transferred, the PC it was transferred from won't run CIMPLICITY any more!)

You can call GE-Fanuc and they can walk you through the process of manually transferring the license without the information from the other hard-disk drive--as long as you have the paper copy of the CIMPLICITY license (it was usually provided in a letter-sized, yellow-and-white-and-red thick card-stock envelope, sometimes on a yellow sheet of paper). Unfortunately, it's a long-distance call to the US--but, if that's the only way, then....

You probably haven't damaged your ARCnet card, but it doesn't sound like TCI is running. You can open the 'Services' Control Panel applet and scroll down through the list of services installed on the machine, and you should find TCI. It should be listed as 'Running'; if not, try to start it from the 'Services' applet (there's usually a means to start it from the applet). If you can't determine how to start it from the applet, click on Start then Run and type cmd in the field and press ENTER to open a command-prompt window. Then type NET START TCI to manually start TCI. Then check the ARCnet card LEDs. And re-check the 'Services' Control Panel applet to see if TCI is started and running.

You didn't say if you'd installed the site-specific software from the old hard-disk (it is hoped you backed that up to CD or floppies to re-install it from). It is believed that TCI will use the F:\ARCNET.DAT file to determine some of the configuration settings for the ARCnet card. Check the F:\ARCNET.DAT file to be sure the proper ARCnet card is uncommented in the file. If not, you're going to have to copy the information from one of the other GE Mark V HMIs--hoping that the files on all the GE Mark V HMIs have been religiously updated if any changes were made over the years....

The problem may be even more generic than that, though. If you did a "generic" install of the software, you may need to go into the TCI Control Panel applet and set all the parameters of the different tabs.... This author doesn't have access to a PC with TCI installed at this time, but you should be able to look at the other GE Mark V HMIs and make the settings the same.

But, you probably haven't damaged the ARCnet card; it's more likely that the software install you performed isn't "complete"--that is the configuration of all the parameters and settings isn't complete. GE Mark V HMIs are horribly complicated and difficult to set up; again, this author has seen several competent people who were extremely knowledgeable in CIMPLICITY just literally throw up their hands is frustration trying to configure a GE Mark V HMI with CIMPLICITY (and CIMBRIDGE and TCI)! It's not easy or intuitive--nor is documented properly ANYWHERE (even in GE--it's just tribal knowledge).

When you do finally get TCI and the ARCnet card working (you WILL need to have the site-specific software installed on the new hard-disk drive), you will be able to open a User Defined- or Demand Display and see data, or even a Logic Forcing Display and put up a couple of points on the display and see live data, or use the Pre-vote Data Display to see live data. And, usually, most CIMPLICITY licenses allow a four-hour "trial" period without the license, so when EVERYTHING is up and running even if you haven't yet got the license transferred over you can still see CIMPLICITY displays for four-hour periods until the trial period times out (then you just re-start CIMPLICITY).

It just sounds like the install and configuration isn't complete. Write back if you need more help or have any questions. Be patient; this isn't the fastest method of troubleshooting, but it does work. Or, you can call someone from the OES (Original Equipment Supplier) or GE to come out and assist you if you're in a real hurry. It sounds like you have enough HMIs to keep the plant running.

markvguy

 

I am considering upgrading a cimplicity 4.0 system communicating with a mark IV controller to the latest and greatest Cimp version. I am finding very little reliable information about how the cimp driver works and whether it can run in the newer versions of cimplicity. markVguy seems to know a great deal about this interface. Is he available for consulting?

dkimmel

 

CSE Engineering has developed a direct replacement for the Mk IV and Mk V Cimplicity HMI. Our <ITC> system uses standard Off-the-shelf Arcnet cards from Contemporary Controls and does not use Cimplicity, CimBridge, or TCI. For further information you can go to http://www.itc-info.us or call us at (925) 686-6733.

Craig