First, thanks for all your feedback on the technotes. I am glad you are finding them informative and helpful. I've put together a personal support site. This site is free for you all to use. This support site contains updated documentation, and videos that guide you through setting up RSLinx, Features of RSLogix, RSView, and Visual Basic. You will also find review questions to see if you are remembering what you learned in class. The site is http://www.learnautomation.com .

This month, I would like to talk about RSLinx Gateway.

Disclaimer: Although I have made efforts to ensure this document is correct, it is your responsibiltiy to prove the accuracy of all information in this document before invoking it in any way. Especially when damage to personnel or machinery could result.

Do you have RSLinx Gateway?

To find out if you have RSLinx Gateway on your machine, look in the title bar of RSLinx. If the title bar says RSLinx Gateway, then your machine can function as a gateway. If it does not say RSLinx gateway, you can still connect to a gateway machine, but your computer cannot act as a gateway without purchasing the gateway activation from your distributor.

What is a Gateway?

Let's say you have 20 PLC-5 processors connected together over Data Highway Plus. You also have a PC on the same DH+ network with a PKTx card. This machine is also running on the plant's ethernet network. If this computer is set up as a gateway, it is possible for any computer running on the plant's ethernet network to connect to the gateway machine, and use it's KT driver to access the DH+ network. Effectively you can go online with any processor on the DH+ network from anywhere in the plant. (given proper authorization) Of course there are some dangers to be aware of if you are making changes or forcing I/O, but for data acquisition, or remote troubleshooting, it works well.

If all of your PLC's are on ethernet anyway, this would not be helpful because the ethernet driver would allow you to connect directly to any PLC without the need of a gateway.

Setting up the GATEWAY:

If you have RSLinx Gateway, open RSLinx, and click Communications | Configure Gateway. Then check Enable RSLinx Gateway. Shut down and re-open RSLinx. (Yes it's that easy) Now drivers on the machnie are available for others to connect to. You may also want to go to the Client Access List tab and restrict access so only machines with certain IP addresses can use the gateway.

Setting up the CLIENT:

Go to Communication | Configure Drivers. From the Available driver types pull down list, choose Remote Devices Via Linx Gateway. Name the driver and hit OK. You will see the host name of all the avalable GATEWAYS. You can also put in the IP address of the gatway manually if the gateway doesn't show up. Click on the host name. You will then see a list of available drivers that are set up on the gateway. Choose the driver you want to connect to, and hit apply then OK. You should now be able to see the network under your new TCP driver.

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In Open Source news:

Open Office .org 1.1.3 is now available and can be download for Linux, Windows, Macintosh, etc... at http://www.openoffice.org

Open Office is a free office suite maintained by Sun Microsystems. They have come a long way. It will open .doc files from Microsoft Word, and it will also save .doc files. Spreadsheets (xls) files work as well. Spell check is available, and you can also print documents to PDF format without purchasing Adobe Acrobat. With the spreadsheet you can configure a topic in RSLinx Gateway or Professional, and create a hot link to a memory location in a PLC. It can also connect to a database for mail merge. It's a powerful suite, and continues to get better. This is the Open Source version of StarOffice.

Fedora Core 3, and SuSE Linux 9.2 have been released. I have them both ordered. If I think about it, I'll let you know how the install went in the next newsletter.

Take care, and Happy Thanksgiving.

Ricky