Replacing a defective instrument on a Fieldbus segment: what needs to be done in NIFBUS?

[jmartinson50]

Please consider this scenario:

I have an instrument, call it PT-101, a Rosemount 3051 pressure transmitter. It exists on my FF segment and is configured in the segment's FBAP/schedule.

Then the instrument fails. The instrument tech physically replaces the instrument with a new one.

Question: what needs to be done to 'commission' the replacement instrument in the segment?

Ideally, there would be a way for me to say, in NIFBUS, "this new instrument is taking the place of PT-101", and when I did this, the replacement instrument would get downloaded with the old PT-101's configuration, and would take the old PT-101's place in the FBAP schedule. I have a feeling it is not that easy. What steps (please be as specific as possible) do I need to take to make this replacement?

a) It seems obvious that I need to re-name the instrument with the correct tag name using NIFBUS (in this cast PT-101).

b) How can a get the old PT-101 configuration (scaling, etc) downloaded to the new instrument?

c) Is it possible to download to a single instrument?

d) Do I need to re-do the FBAP using the new instrument, and then download the segment again?

Thanks!

[Vince Shen]

From my understanding, the previous FBAP configuration is not saved. If so, here are the procedures.

1. Upload the existing FBAP running in the LAS into Configurator.

- Double click Function Block Application icon to open FBAP window
- Select interface0-0 (or other tag name) icon, click Configurator main menu, Configure->Upload Configuration. Wait until the all the upload procedures completes. The existing FBAP running in the LAS will be uploaded into FBAP window.

Upload operation takes several minutes.

The removed device will no longer exist in this FBAP.

2. Add the new device into the uploaded FBAP manually. Configure the parameters.

3. Download the FBAP again.

4. Click Configurator main menu File->Save to save the current configuration into the *.fcp file, including FBAP and all parameters. You can load the configuration next time.

The answers to your questions:
a) You need to set the tag name for the new PT-101.
b) The old PT-101 configuration does not exist if it is not saved in Configurator before.
c) The FF specification does not support partial download. Only the entire configuration can be downloaded.
d) Yes, you need to add the new device into the existing FBAP and download again. (Step 2, 3)

[jmartinson50]

thanks for the answer. Some follow-on questions and comments:

1) Question: I see there is a "Replace Device" menu item; when I read the manual section for this it appears that it is designed to accomplish the goal I set out, namely to replace a defective instrument. Can you confirm that "Replace Device" is an alternative to what you described? If so, it seems from the manual that modifying the FBAP would not be required (or more precisely is taken care of automatically by the software).

2) Comment: I have tried the upload function. In 4 tries, I got errors on 2 - in those two cases some of the linkages were not uploaded. After the upload was complete, I had to re-create the missing linkages by hand. Is this a known bug?

Thanks!