Control.com - Nerds in Control

Interfacing a Honeywell C300 FTE and an AB ControlLogix ControlNet. It seems that there are two distinct options from Honeywell - a FTEB (fault tolerant ethernet bridge) and a redundant PC Server. I assume the PC to be running some sort of OPC interface but I am not sure. This interface requires bidirectional control - does anyone have experience with the Honeywell PC interface? does anyone know the pros and cons to each design. This needs to be as robust as possible.

C300 was to develop a direct port in C300 controller, this we had seen in Beta version but are not aware about current status.

Connecting Via File server (OPC) is not advisable. It performs read mode logically, but when you want to write to C300 you have to write a script & this is last priority task for C300/EXPERION. This is only true for third party interface.

If C300 & Control logix are non-interacting, then the case is altogether different. Ask Honeywell to replace ControlLogix processor with C200 processor. This environment/application would become homogeneous.

Our information is about 2 years old when C300 was released. Please check with Honeywell also.

I am not an Experion expert, but why don't you look at putting a C200 on the FTE segment? You need the C200 rack & FTE bridge card, but it would give you full AB connectivity by just plugging in the AB cards into the C200 rack. It will also give you Profibus, Devicenet and pulse inputs that the c300 won't. The Honeywell redundant PC Server is not truly redundant. The last I heard was that you have to shut it down and manually change over.

The idea that the server redundancy in Honeywell does not work is completely wrong. Automatic failover has been in place 10+ years. And yes, I am working for Honeywell (but this does not stop me from providing the facts).

Regards,
MFT

If you work for Honeywell you must be knowledgeable of the Server (ControlNet to Experion R310) interface. It looks as though it uses RSLinks to communicate. Is this robust enough for bidirectional control? I have been very skeptical of server based control and I still am not sure that is the best approach. Since this interface will be used for both control and history collection - I am concerned about bottlenecks and communication time outs - basically due to collisions. I know that ControlNet is very deterministic - I don't know anything about the Experion FTE side of the equation. However if it is non-deterministic, I don't see how you can avoid some of the afore-mentioned pitfalls.

MFT,

Please advise if EPKS C300 is mature enough to be recommended for power gen installation. If you can tell me on two major elements, as EPKS as software and hardware, and specifically on C300 and his I/O system. Please note I need this for my internal information, and not working for the competition.

Regards,
Andrey