Downloads take a very very long time!

[jmartinson50]

Is there a way to decrease the amount of time it takes to download a segment? Mine take between 10 and 15 minutes each, and these are small segments (8 or less devices each).

Thanks!

[DRD-SE]

That sounds about right from my experience. What version of configurator and windows software are you using?

[jmartinson50]

I'm using 3.2.3 on Windows XP. I'll be trying 4.0 very soon to see if that improves things.

I'm wondering if I were to change the schedule such that I allow more time for the scheduled segment communications, I might then have a bigger time window for the non-scheduled configuration/download tasks, and my download might go quicker. But I'm not sure if I can play with the schedule in that manner. (NI docs are, well, IMHO not that great...)

[Vince Shen]

How many function blocks are included in your schedule? Download schedule is not a quick process, especially for large and complex schedules. The entire download process is consisted of several steps, including stopping the current LAS, clearing the existing schedule, configuring alarm/trend, writing data to blocks and LAS, etc. All these steps are time-consuming.

The unscheduled commuication time will also effect the download time. If the scheduled communication occupies too much time, the time left for download is not sufficient. You can try tuning the time in the FBAP schedule in Configurator.

[jmartinson50]

I have in the worst cast 14 function blocks linked in my FBAP - that seems to me to be a 'simple' FBAP compared to what some people may have.

How do I 'tune' the time in the FBAP schedule?

Thanks!

[DRD-SE]

Hay jmartinson50, let me know how you V4.0 upgrade has gone or will go?

[Vince Shen]

Another factor of download speed is the number of link master devices in your segment. Configuartor will download the FBAP to every link master device. Writing the schedule to the devices does take time.

For the FBAP that contains about 10 blocks and a segment with several link master devices, 10-minute download time is usually reasonable. There will be considerable data exchanges during the download process. The rate of FF is 31.25k, not a high-speed protocol.

In Status tab which is located in the bottom of Configurator main window, you can see the download status. Could you check the status to find out which steps took the longest time?