Fieldpoint - 9th module comms problem

[Alexis.Lussier.Desbiens@USherbrooke.ca]

All,

We have installed a FP system in the canadian arctic to do some
controlling and monitoring of a greenhouse - strange project as you
can see already.

In any case we are having an intermittent problem communicating with
the newly installed 9th module (10 modules total if you include the
FP-2015 Controller). We recently installed this ninth module a TC-120
an initally everything seemed to be working correctly. For the last
week though we can not seem to access or communicate properly with
this module - the Power Light will continuously flash on and off
(while the Ready button is always off). The strange thing is this
will sometimes work and sometimes not and also this is still the case
when we can out the module or even the te
rminal base - so it does not
seem to be a connection problem (though in some circumstances if we
push the module into the terminal base with some force and on off
angles it sometimes can come online). We have also ran the power
calculuations and we are under the suggested 9W (by approx 4W margin)
we also checked this by actually measuring the power usage.

Does anyone have any suggestions to what this could be?

Our set up is as follows

FP-2015
4 x FP-TC-120
1 x FP-DI-330
2 x FP-RLY-420
2 x FP-AI-100

With, as stated, a FP-TC-120 in the last position - also note that we
have two banks of modules connected with a bus extender kit.

Thanks for your time,

Matt

[Aaron_G]

Matt,

Some of the information in your message is a little contradictory. You say that it does not appear to be a connection problem, but pushing the module in with more force and unusual angles makes the problem disappear. Additional clarification would be helpful.

With the FP-TC-120 having a blinking Power LED and no Ready LED, this generally indicates that the microcontroller in the module is running through its initial self-diagnostics, failing, and rebooting itself to try again. This can be caused by bent pins or terminal base circuitry failure, but is more often indicative of hardware failure in the FP-TC-120.

Have you tried switching the FP-TC-120 at position 9 with one of the other FP-TC-120s? Does the problem follow the IO module or stay with t
he 9th slot.
If it follows the FP-TC-120, contact NI for an RMA for the module. With it sometimes working and sometimes not based upon insertion angle/force, there may be a bad solder joint that is only making intermittent contact.

Also, as a note, similar questions to this one will be better off posted in the Distributed IO->FieldPoint forum.

Regards,
Aaron