Interfacing Honeywell UDC 3300 Temperature controller

[J.A.C]

Hi,

Has anyone experienced using the Honeywell UDC 3300 Temperature controller through LabVIEW ?

I am trying to interface the Honeywell UDC 3300 Temperature controller with PC through serial Interface. I am using the Black Box Converter plus 232 to 485/422. The software driver i have downloaded from NI.com. However, when i run the VI that reads from temperature controller i get error message "Communication failure:No Response from Controller"

Can anyone help ?.

Thanks.

[Beth F]

I have experimented a little with a UDC 3300 in labview, however I was using Modbus protocol through the IA OPC drivers from NI.  That's an option if you already have the IA OPC Server or have some money to burn. 

Sorry, I've never tried with the VISA driver for Honeywells, but theoretically it should do the same thing.  For a Communication Failure alarm, I would recommed double checking your configuration settings: baud rate, parity, which COM port, stop bits, etc. because some of these can be changed internally in the controller and must match exactly with your VI settings. 

Good luck, sorry I don't have more experience with the driver you are using.  It may take some work to get it communicating properly at first, but it should be easy after that. 

[J.A.C]

Beth,

Thanks for your reply.

I have verified the settings for the serial port and the settings in the controller. They match well. I dont think the serial port configuration parameters are a problem, but the convertor or the wiring could be !

I am using the Black Box RS232 to 485/422 convertor. I am not sure this is going to be working with Honeywell controller. What type of converter did you use ?.

[Beth F]

J.A.C.

Darn, I was hoping it was just serial parameters that didn't match up - that's usually my problem. 

As a matter of fact, my predecessor used the RS232/485 converter from Black Box, so it will work if all the settings line up.  (He used lookout, so I assume it was just the Modbus driver object, not a special Honeywell driver)  I had to convert from RS485 to Ethernet, so that config doesn't really apply though. 

There are a lot of jumpers and settings in the converter....  If it were me, I would start messing around with some of them, like changing to half duplex, adding some delays.  I found the manual, and it seems to have a loopback test built in, I don't really know if this would help you eliminate the issue as being on the 232 side. 

If it helps at all, here are some of the settings I used in the Honeywell:

ComSTATE=Modbus,     SHED ENAB=ENABL,     SHEDTIME=1,      BAUD=19200,     DUPLEX=HALF,     WS FLOAT=FP B,     TX DELAY=2

Everything else was still the factory default I think.  I honestly don't know what the SHED settings mean, or why they work, just something else to try. 

Best of Luck!

Beth

[J.A.C]

Thanks Beth,

But with the above setting i still can't get it to work !. Yes there are lot of jumpers, but i don't see much problem with them. For matter of fact, i have even swapped few of them and saw if it worked. But no luck :(.

I didn't understand why you need to convert it form RS485 to ethernet ?.

Hope someone out there can help.

[Beth F]

I hope someone else has more experience with this particular application, I wish I could help more.  Keep trying though, these devices should be compatible. 

To answer your other question, we have been converting some of our serial device outputs to ethernet so they can be logged to one central computer located anywhere in the plant.  I've got a converter that formats serial data into TCP/IP packets, then back into serial on the PC, so your computer thinks each serial device is hooked up directly to another COM port.  (I used to wonder why they listed hundreds but I could only use COM1, now it makes sense!)  It's pretty nifty, but doesn't really apply for what you're doing. 

Good Luck!  I'll let you know if I think of anything else to try. 

[J.A.C]

Hey Beth,

Problem solved !.

Couple of jumper settings on the Black Box Convertor did the work !. Thanks for you help.

J.A.C

[Shanky]

Hi

I am trying to interface UDC3300 (Honeywell TC) with labView. I did not buy any Blackbox Converter/Westermo Converter (232-485) as it was suggested in the manual for Honeywell.

I connected the +, - (120 ohms across + and -) and gnd from the instrument to the (+,- and gnd) of 9 pin cable and connected a USB485 cable that I bought from NI to the computer.

I am trying to establish connection to the instrument but I am having communication error. Is the blackbox converter a must? I felt that I could do RS485 through LabView instead of converting to RS232. I installed NI-USB driver software from NI. Is there any test command or an example program that I can run to test the communication.

Thanks for your help,

Shankar

[J.A.C]

Hi Shanky,

I am not sure of NI-USB as i have not used it. But i think NI will provide necessay VIs to interface the deivice to USB port. Also i think the UDC 3300 provides a loopback to test the communication card in controller.

Since i am interfacing the UDC3300 through the serial port (using VISA), i need to convert from RS-232 to RS485. This work is done by blackbox convertor. The 485 conversion is required by the modbus protocol. Note that even in your case, if you are using the modbus protocol, you will need to convert to 485. Since this is protocol (voltage levels) conversions, I dont know how you have done it through software ( i am not an expert though ! 🙂 ).

I used the two-wire configuration. The terminating resistor of 120 ohm is required and you have already connected it.

The Black box convertor simplifies your job a lot. But i think it is not a must.

[Beth F]

Hi,

I have been having intermittent problems using modbus through the IA OPC Server, so I would like to try the honeywell VISA driver mentioned above.  I am getting the same message of "Communication Failure.  No response from the controller." 

The hardware setup seems fine since I can establish comms using the IAOPC.  Are there any settings that need to be changed in the honeywell controller or in the VI in order for it to communicate properly?  Just fishing for suggestions. 

Thanks,

Beth