>>The AB Gateway (or Integrator30) limiting resource is usually the RS232 baud rate, likely 19, 200. Not in our experience. Our Int30As will not saturate even a 9600 baud serial link, a fact which I find puzzling to this day, given the hardware. We do generally have more than one PLC per A-B highway (but not an excessive number), but the Honeywell PLCGs I used to use fared far better in a multiple-PLC scenario than Int30s do, and Rockwell RSLinx is in another universe entirely performance-wise. Since our efforts to optimize the gateways led to even more problems (frozen data with no system errors, primarily), we are switching slowly to an AW70 integrator. It's not a situation I like, but the AW70 has much better performance (it uses RSLinx to deal with the PLCs), and it's about our only other option unless we decide to go to V8 and CP270s. In addition (because of RSLinx), it can read _any_ PLC data from _any_ A-B PLC, regardless of the PLC type or the manner in which it's connected. Int30s can't deal with anything not directly connected to the highway they are attached to. That said, you are correct about the desire to pack the data and read as many (contiguous) registers with as few ABSCANs as possible. The effects of ABSCAN processing overhead can be profound -- we noticed it the few times we were able to make the changes without any other adverse side-effects. Now, back to Imran's question :) The addressing format will be different in the FBM231s than on the DI I imagine. I've never set up a FBM231, but to continue my previous example, a CIN that referenced a bit in B3 on the Int30 might have a PNT_NO of 3:0.1, where in the AW70 it would be an FCIN block with a PNT_NO of [PLC_NAME]B3:0.1. For the AW70 I found this out by trial and error with an OPC test tool (the AW70 reads in data via OPC), but I found this documentation for my FBM224s in the Modbus FBM User's Guide. So your block types will be different ("standard I/A" in the DI vs. DCI in the FBM231), and the IOM_ID and PNT_NO will likely be different. Unfortunately I did not find a document on the Invensys site that described the addressing format for serial-connected A-B PLCs; they only seem to have one for OPC connections. Corey Clingo BASF Corporation "Doucet, Terrence" <tdoucet@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent by: foxboro-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 09/17/2007 10:14 AM Please respond to foxboro@xxxxxxxxxxxxx To <foxboro@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> cc Subject [foxboro] RE : Communication problem b/w FBM231 & AB PLC Imran, The AB Gateway (or Integrator30) limiting resource is usually the RS232 baud rate, likely 19, 200. Each serial communication consists of overhead (addresses, security check, etc) that do not provide information about your process and data (your process good stuff) that all must be part of the 19,200 baud. You need to try and minimize the overhead by reading (or writing) contiguous bytes of PLC data. Most users get the PLC logic to move the various pieces of information in the PLC into contiguous data areas in the PLC and then the Foxboro Integrators read that contiguous data with the largest read that is possible. If you just read your input data directly, most of your 19,200 baud would be overhead. It takes a little work to map the data in and then read it out on the Foxboro side but it is well worth the effort. At 19,200 baud you can usually read about 350 bytes per second of your data but there are a lot of other factors (like the number of PLC's on your DH+ network) that could lower this 350 bytes per second. Also you need to keep writes from the Foxboro to the PLC to low numbers per second. _______________________________________________________________________ This mailing list is neither sponsored nor endorsed by Invensys Process Systems (formerly The Foxboro Company). Use the info you obtain here at your own risks. Read http://www.thecassandraproject.org/disclaimer.html foxboro mailing list: //www.freelists.org/list/foxboro to subscribe: mailto:foxboro-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=join to unsubscribe: mailto:foxboro-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=leave