PAB subgroups

[Lasse]

Hi all
As all readers may have understand – I work with some rather large installations of Profilux networks and I have run into some problems with the PAB system in one of my installations. I have spend a lot of time trying to have this profilux system to work as it should.

At last – I have it to work nearly in the way I want – but only nearly.

The PAB system has possibility to make different virtual subsystem at the same existing physical PAB network. I decide to use this ability at a large system situated at an indoor fresh water fish farm. The reason to this was that the different devices, that I want two 3.1T computers to manage, are spread out all over the farm. The main idea was to use one of the computer mainly for manage 30 feeding machines and the other for logging and regulate 4 separate systems.

I did one PAB group 1 for the regulation and a PAB group 3 for the manage of feeding systems.

The physical order was Powerhub 1 (3) – Powerhub 2 (3) – Powerhub 3 (3) – powerhub 4 (3) – computer 2 (3) – SMS1 (1) - Computer 1 (1) – 6 powerbar (1) – EXB 1 (1) – powerhub 5 (3) – EXB 2 (1) – 5.1 Powerbar 1 (1) – 5,1 Powerbar 2 (1) - 5.1 Powerbar 3 (1) – 5.1 Powerbar 4 (1) – EXB 3 (1) and powerhub 6 (3) (The figure inside () show witch PAB group the device was connected to. To computer 1 there is also two 4 unit dosing device connected to S1-4.

In spite of a lot of problems I succeeded to have this configuration to work. The problems included that sensor indexes change and that iI had to do the power hubs and the power bars numbering and initial state in a special order – otherwise they interact with each others. But I got it to work.

Well – last week I had to add two EXB to the system – one with temp, pH and 4 redox probes (EXB 4) and one with 1 temp, 1 redox and 2 pH probes (EXB 5). They was added in the beginning of the chain (EXB 5 (1) – EXB 4 (1) – Powerhub 1 (3) – and so on.

Now I got problems that took me over 30 hours of testing to solve – and the solution was to use 2 different physical networks – one for each computer and both with PAB group 1. It means that I have to use more cables and can´t use combine resources (dosing pumps and Top off basins) to all 4 farming systems.

When I try to connect EXB 4 and 5 to PAB group 1 – the probe indexes get crazy and different devices at the same group got the same PAB Address! Please see the report 1.

report 1 pab 1.txt

The computer has PAB address 17 and the EXB 5 (serial 1504053001) got the same address! The SMS module got the same address (18) as EXB 1 (serial 1504053002). I test many different configurations inclusive to change the PAB group from 1 to 4, 5, 6 and 7 ( in the computer – PAB group 1-7 is available – at Controll Center you can use 1 – 30 as device address and the nor follow each other. If you change the computers PAB group from 1 to, let us say, 4 and using the computers interface window – the device address for the computer in the Control Center will not change but if you add other devices to the the PAB group – they got the device address of the profilux computer even in the Control Center.

However – once I succeeded to set up it the way I want – but without SMS unit. At that moment (and after many PAB resets and adding new devices) everything worked out ( I use PAB group 4 for dator 1 and its devices and 3 for dator 2 and its devices. When I add the SMS unit – everything messed up again.

At this moment (17:00 Friday evening ) I separated the two networks physically and give each of them the PAB group 1 (With help of the interface window at the profilux computer) Now I want to assign the devices with help of the Control Center.

Panic – I was not able to connect through Control center – not with LAN or USB cable – in no way I was able to connect. I reinstall Control Center, I restart my PC, I restart my profilux – but – the text couldn´t connect appears every time.

Factory reset – sure but a lot of work to configure again even if I had both sensor and settings backup.

I remember that the PAB group in the Control Center did not follow the change from the profilux interface according to changes of PAB groups – could it be so simple? Yes it could! I change the device address in the window of the administration of connection from 1 to 7 (I know that 7 was the last device number I had given inside the Control Center) (se picture below)

Screen Shot 12-21-15 at 01.43 PM.PNG

Now its works for computer 1! After testing different addresses for computer 2 – it works also for that computer. I change both to group 1 inside the Control center – and now its work as it should.

Now I assigned all devices to respectively computer in each network (even the two new EXB that for the moment is assigned to Computer 2) I did not assign any SMS unit. Everything works without any problems. No powerbars interact with each other, new indexes adds there i should and so on. No dubble PAB addresses!

Final test – adding SMS unit. It also works good – before when I use PAB group over 1 – I was able to contact the device (sometimes) but the system said PABCOM fault every time. But when I use PAB group 1 – I can assign SMS units without any problems. It seems to me that the SMS unit has problems with PAB groups that is not 1!

@ GHL staff
Please – I would welcome feedback on this. I know that I´m not the normal user of your systems and that my questions is rather special - if you do not want to have this type of questions at the forum – comeback to me through e-mail or private messages. I have solve this problem for the moment but not in the way I want. Both at this farm and another large installation – I want to use this possibilities with virtual subnets in one physical network and I hope that my post help you to further develop the concept with different PAB groups.

As I see it – it does not work the way it should for the moment – at least not the way I have configure it and not here at the fish farm.

I had to do a lot of experiments now because I need to have the system to work because of its a lot of fish in here (and bacteria filters). But now when its up and running – I can´t risk anymore experiments so I need to know from you if I´m doing anything wrong or if there is bugs in the PAB protocol.

I´m not able to write a book but I have more information of how the system work (or not work) – so please come back with questions so we are able to work this out.

Sincerely Lasse

[Lasse]

Any one?

Sincerely Lasse

[Matthias]

This is a lot of text and we understand not much of it.

Could you give us a summary in a few sentences and a concrete question, please?

[Lasse]

I´m sorry that my English is so bad and that you have problems to understand what I try to describe. But English is not my native language, neither German. I´m not able to write at all in German and therefore I use the English forum – but once again – I´m sorry that I can´t describe my problems with help of my English.

My experiences is that if you want to solve a problem – the fault description is the most important things to show – that’s the reason for the long text.

But shortly

I try to set up a physical PAB network with 2 profilux computers with different PAB groups and different devices connected to each computer.
It did not work – see my first post – why?

As you can see in the attached file in my first post (report 1 PAB 1.txt) has different PAB devices got the same PAB address.
The computer has PAB address 17 – the same as one of my expansions boxes in the same PAB-group
My SMS module has PAB device 18 – the same as another expansion box in the same PAB-group
Why?

When I split up the PAB network to two physical networks with one profilux to each PAB network – it works as it should - but to have the SMS unit to work I had to change the PAB group to number 1 in each physical network –
Why can´t the SMS unit not take other PAB groups (only group 1)

The possible PAB groups using the computer text interface is 7
The possible PAB gropus (device addresses) in GCC is 30 – Why?

If you change the PAB group with help of the computers interface – the device address will not change in GCC. It means that if you change the PAB address with help of the computers interface – you can´t connect through CGG because it still try to use the old address. You must change the device address in the connection window (see attached file in the first post) to the old device address and after you have connected the computer change the device address in the CGG communication window.
Why?

Sincerely Lasse