Re: [foxboro] Compound loading limits

When we installed our ACM's three years ago we ran into the block limit
while trying to load and test our system in Foxboro's labs in Houston.
We were trying to bring over individual discretes as CIN's each
representing and alarm for an interlock.  What we ended up doing is
setting the system up to be like our old MODBUS interface.  We took a
Triconex library function that packs sixteen discretes and modified it
to fit Foxboro's LSB and MSB form and used MCIN's on the Foxboro side.
This alleviated our block limit problem.

Chad M. Airhart
Senior Engineer - Lyondell Chemical Co.
Instrument, Electrical and Control Systems Engineering
Victoria Plant
Ph. (361)572-2568
Fx. (361)572-2541
Cell. (361)935-3230

-----Original Message-----
From: foxboro-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:foxboro-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of tom.vandewater@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Thursday, August 18, 2005 2:08 PM
To: foxboro@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [foxboro] Compound loading limits

Con,
        Funny you should mention the limitations of a FoxGuard ACM.
Last week we ran into some problems of our own with them.  For those of
you that don't know, the Foxguard ACM allows a Triconex TRICON, (a
Triple Modular Redundant system commonly used for high reliability
Safety Shutdown protection), to communicate on the Fox IA nodebus as a
control station.  The ACM runs a control image very similar to a CP but
the ACM is physically installed in a TRICON card cage and talks to the
nodebus through a DNBI, or to a CP via a new 200 series FDSI FBM.  The
ACM boot host is an AW on the Foxboro nodebus and for all practical
purposes you make configuration changes to the interface just like you
would on an IA CP.
        Our first problem arose when one of the guys on our team made a
change to the ACM configuration using the ICC.  He was able to exit the
ICC without incident and a "Checkpoint Success" message was sent to
SysMon.  When he tried to re-enter the ICC for the ACM later that day he
received the following message: "E33 Database Operation in Progress"
        We searched the CSC website looking for information and found
that there was a CAR and a QF issued to fix this problem.  At the same
time we found other CAR's and QF's for several other problems.
        Foxboro has changed the ACM software image several times
recently trying to fix all of these problems and if you aren't careful
you might miss what is the latest and greatest image available.  (today
it is 4.2.6), but that could change by the time you look.  They did send
out a customer advisory on the new Foxguard image last week and that is
better than they did in the past.  Also, to their credit, they have
gotten better on the website and now only include the latest QF for an
image.  It used to be that you could see all of them and you had to
decide which one was the most current.  When you saw all of them
together, it was pretty unsettling because you actually knew how many
times they were making changes to the image.
        We installed the new image to fix our original problem:=3D20
"E33 Database Operation in Progress"
And then ran into another limitation that was pre-existing but we hadn't
hit it before.  A Foxguard ACM can only support 129 ECB blocks!  That
may sound like a lot but you have to use a new ECB for every Tricon Card
installed as well as one ECB for every 16 software values you want to
pass from the TRICON to IA or vise-versa.  We were able to configure
more than 129 ECB's in the ICC and could even see them in the select
screen but only 129 will display in System Management and as a result
you can never turn the ECB's online, and such can never use them.  A
call to Foxboro brought the response, Sorry but you can only have 129
ECB's in the ACM.  Anyone know how to turn on ECB's via command line
instead of via SysMon.  Our Foxguard is barely loaded as far as the
Station block shows but we can't pass any more values because we can't
turn on the ECB's.  Sounds like a serious design flaw to me but Foxboro
doesn't agree, or at least the CSC rep we talked to.

Tom VandeWater
Control Systems Developer/Analyst
Dow Corning Corporation
Carrollton, KY   USA



-----Original Message-----
From: foxboro-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:foxboro-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Perez, Claudio
Sent: Thursday, August 18, 2005 1:25 PM
To: 'foxboro@xxxxxxxxxxxxx'
Subject: Re: [foxboro] Compound loading limits

I don't know about compound limits in a Foxguard. What we do know is =
=3D3D
that
Foxguard is a bit unstable, mainly when cpu loading is near or below 20
=3D3D
%.

Regards
Claudio

-----Mensaje original-----
De: O'Brien, Con [mailto:con.obrien@xxxxxx]
Enviado el: Lunes, 15 de Agosto de 2005 00:15
Para: foxboro@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Asunto: [foxboro] Compound loading limits


Hi all,

Does anybody know if there's a limit on the number of compounds =3D3D3D
configurable in a control station?=3D3D3D20

More specifically, I'm having some problems with an ACM (FoxGuard) =
=3D3D3D
module, and I'm wondering if it's related to the number of compounds =
=3D3D
=3D3D3D
I've configured (> 60).=3D3D3D20

It's easy enough to find block and block-equivalent limits for control =
=3D
=3D3D
=3D3D3D
stations, but I've never seen a number for a limit on compounds.

cheers,
Con
=3D3D20
=3D3D20
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Systems (formerly The Foxboro Company). Use the info you obtain here at
your own risks. Read http://www.thecassandraproject.org/disclaimer.html
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