Yes it’s possible to connect a PCD directly to the internet, but you have to protect your PCD against unauthorised access or cyber-attacks.

To protect the PCD against unauthorised access or cyber-attacks, it’s imperatively needed to take some protective measures.

Information about protective measures can be found on the support hp

If you need a PCD with cyber security levels SL3+ and based on ANSI ISA 62443 then checkout our PCD3.M6893 (QronoX PCD), this PCD was developed for cybersecure applications.

Information's can be found here.

No, SBC devices are not affected from the Ripple20 zero-day vulnerabilities since none of our products uses the TCP/IP software library developed by Treck, Inc.

In some situations it is necessary to have access possibilities from external networks to the displays. By factory default, the integrated firewall in Windows CE is activated. With activated firewall, the device will not respond to all TCP-IP remote requests or protocols from another device in the network.

To ensure, that your panel can be reached from a remote device in the network, you have to disable the integrated Firewall. Therefor you must follow the steps below:

1.       Go to “start menu\programs” and open the registry editor

2.       Search for entry “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Comm\Firewall”

3.       On the right side you will see the entry “EnableIPv4”. Do a right click on it and write a “0”  (“zero” as DWORD) to the DWORD Value Data and click “OK”.

4.       Open the entry again and proof whether the new value was saved by the system. If not do the  operation of point three again.

5.       Go to menu “File” and click “save to flash”

6.       Reboot the panel.

In some situations it is necessary to have access possibilities from external networks to the displays. By factory default, the integrated firewall in Windows CE is activated. With activated firewall, the device will not respond to all TCP-IP remote requests or protocols from another device in the network.

To ensure, that your panel can be reached from remote device in the network, you have to disable the integrated Firewall. Therefor you must follow the steps below:

1.       Go to “start menu\programs” and open the registry editor.

2.       Search for entry “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Comm\Firewall”.

3.       On the right side you will see the entry “EnableIPv4”. Do a right click on it and write a “0”  (“zero” as DWORD) to the DWORD Value Data and click “OK”.

4.       Open the entry again and proof whether the new value was saved by the system. If not do the   operation of point three again.

5.       Go to menu “File” and click “save to flash”

6.       Reboot the panel.

Situation:
The PCD is configured as Modbus client with the Saia-Modbus client F-Boxes and you have to communicate over Ethernet with a Siemens S7-314C-2 with the Modbus protocol.
Randomly, some read or write F-Boxes are working fine and others not.

Problem:
The problem is that the Siemens device sends a ‘reset’ telegram after sending the response to the PCD.
Since the PCD has received the response from the Siemens, the PCD does exit from the Modbus communication state machine and end the task correctly.

If the PCD now receives this unexpected ‘reset’ telegram from Siemens device, then the PCD thinks, that this is an error message from the Siemens device and does close the communication and the F-Box goes in error state.

The transmission/reception F-Box which is in the queue to proceed the next Modbus request is now no more able to communicate with the Siemens device.

Solution:
Use the Modbus Initialization Client Extended F-Box.
In this F-Box you have the possibility to set a minimum request delay.
Set the minimum request delay to 100ms

This problem occurred for example with a Simatic S7-314C-2 Siemens device.

Symptoms

If we try to send an SMS message with a GSM modem and the FBox SendSms. The CallSMS FBox is in Error with the Error code 535.

Reason

Probably a wrong SMS Service Center Number is configured.

It can be a typing Error or the SMS Service Center doesn't fit to the SIM card because it was exchanged with the card from another provider.

Solution

Use the correct number. The number for SMS Server must normally be divided in at least 2 parts. Tf number 1 / Tf number 2. Each part of the number can have 8 digits. Keep attention that if you do copy / paste from numbers that are available e.g. in the FBox-help that all numbers are correctly copied. Keep attention to use the protocol “GSM Text” in the protocol option of the Call SMS FBox.

You want to change the file name of the attachment. Because you log every day trends and save them daily in a new .csv file. The actually date is coded in the file name. Now you want to send an email every day with the actually file. See the PG5 example below.

Note:

In the attached example the data’s will be stored daily. If you store the data’s weekly or monthly you have to adapt the program especially the file name in the log file inside of the SendMail FBox.

Additionally in the example is the function implemented that you can give directly the SMTP server name and the IP Address is not needed. The advantage is if your provider change the IP address you do not need to adapt the program see FAQ 101850 for more information about this topic.

No, do not connect the RJ45 connector of a Ethernet Port of a PCD directly to Power over Ethernet (PoE).

The RJ45 Ethernet port of the PCD will be destroyed if connected directly to PoE (Mode B) because our Ethernet port (PCD7.F655 or the integrated Ethernet ports on the PCD1.M0/M2, PCD2.M5 and PCD3 and all Panels with Ethernet ports) are not designed for this purpose.

Possible solution to connect PCD to Ethernet networks where PoE is used:
1.
Split the Ethernet network in a section where PoE is used and in to a section where PoE is not used and connect the PCD in to the section where PoE is not used.
The splitting of the network could be achieved with routers which do have on one side connectors with PoE and on the other side connectors without PoE.

2.
Use a special Ethernet cable where the blue/blue-white and the brown/brown-white wires are disconnected.
(On PoE Mode B; the Pin 4 and Pin 7 of the RJ45 Ethernet connector are used to supply the power of PoE to the card,
On the PCD the Pin 1, 2, 3, 6 of the RJ45 Ethernet connector are uesd for the Ethernet communication)

The MPI communication is no longer working since the firmwares 1.16.xx have been introduced.

Since a long time it is possible to use the MPI communication on the classic PCD.
Unfortunatly this communication is no longer working since the firmwares 1.16.xx have been introduced.
The concerned systems are the PCD1.M2xx0, PCD2.M5xx0, PCD3.Mxxx0 and PCD3.Mxx60.

This bug is now fix and it is once again possible to use the MPI communication with the firmware 1.16.52 or newer.

Remark:
Our PCDs are MPI Server (slave).

In some cases (if the Modbus server is rather slow) a minimum delay between two Modbus requests (which are sent by the Modbus client) is to be respected (e.g. if the server needs some time to correctly prepare its next response).

If the Modbus client (or master) doesn't respect this minimum delay time the Modbus server (or slave) can't treat all requests which will lead to communication errors.

How to define a minimum delay between two Modbus requests?
In PG5 1.4.300 (or higher) with version 1.0.17 (or higher) of the SBC Modbus FBox library it is possible to delay the request sent by a ModBus client to a Modbus server each time the request is sent.
The same function is available for PG5 2.0.110 (or higher) with the version 2.6.101 (or higher) of the SBC Modbus FBox library.

You can configure this Minimum Request Delay parameter either in the Init Client TCP extended FBox or in the Init Client RS extended FBox.

There are several reasons to use the FBox "SASI S-Bus Extended" (see FAQ 101400). But there is a limitation that it is not possible to use this FBox for re-assigning a port as Gateway master port on Saia PCD® COSinus systems.

Symptom
When re-assigning a Gateway master port using this FBox (or even in IL with the instruction SASI) it is not possible to assign the same port as Gateway master port after it has once been unassigned. This is the case if there is a falling and later on a rising edge on the input "Sasi" of the FBox "SASI S-Bus extended". On the second attempt to assing the port as gateway master port the FBox will get an error and the FBox LED becomes red:

• In the case you configure the GATEWAY funtion (in the device configurator and in the "SASI S-bus Extended" Fbox )
• The 1rst rising edge on the "SASI" input assigns the communication port (as serial master gateway)
  --> the Master-Slave communication works well.
• A falling edge (state "1" to "0") on ths "SASI" input de-assigns the corresponding communication port
  --> no communication is possible
• If you apply a 2nd rising edge on the "SASI" input, it will put the "SASI S-Bus Extended" FBox in ERROR. 
  A "Cold Start" is required in order to (re-)assign the communication port as serial Master Gateway port.

Reason
IT IS NOT ALLOWED TO DE-ASSIGN A MASTER GATEWAY PORT (an to re-assign it again) on Saia PCD® COSinus systems (PCD3, PCD2.M5, PCD1.M2 and PCD2.M480). This phenomenon is based on the internal mechanism how the firmware assigns the port. It has not been observed before the usage of the FBox "SASI S-Bus extended" as there are very few (if at all) reasons for un- and re-assigning a port as gateway master port.


Solution
In the case you configure the GATEWAY function (in the device configurator and in the "SASI S-Bus Extended" FBox )
WE RECOMMEND YOU TO CONNECT THE "SASI" TO A BINARY CONSTANT "1".

In this way the above mentioned problem will not occur. Please let us know in case you have an installation where it is required to re-assign a port in runtime as gateway master port.

When establishing Ether-S-Bus communication, the communication works fine, but the S-Bus Master IP FBox is turns red after a certain time.

Symptom
When establishing Ether-S-Bus communication, the communication works fine, but the S-BUS Master IP FBox is turned into red. No no communication problems are observed and registers, flags, etc. are transmitted correctly. But after some time the LED of the "S-BUS Master IP" FBox turns to red.
After a 'Restart cold all' of the CPU, the FBox gets green again.

Reason
On IP-networks, it's absolutely normal that communication retries of telegrams can happen from time to time (due to telegram losts). In this case, the PCD will re-try to send/receive the media automatically.
However, the FBox will indicate every retry with a red LED. Therefore, the red S-BUS Master IP FBox has to be considered only as a warning/information.

Solution
As the loss of a telegram from time to time there is no action required as long as only one retry is executed.
You can check the retry-counter in the Diagnostic FBox of the S-Bus communication library to find out that you're in this kind of situation.

There are several bus protocols that are called "C-Bus". Depending on the system, another philosophy to connect it to a Saia PCD® is to be choosen.

Communication with C-Bus
Please check whether the C-Bus you need to connect is one of the below listed:

• C-Bus from Honeywell
  The SBC PLC's don't offer an interface for C-Bus. To communicate with C-Bus a "MEKS Universal Gateway" can be used. This gateway translates the C-Bus protocol to SBC S-Bus. Please contact MEKS (see link below) for further information.
• C-Bus Cerberus/Siemens
  C-Bus is the internal bus for CS11 alarming systems.  gateway CK11 with DMS7000 protocol offers an RS232 connection and driver with a particular configuration tool is available from Engiby (see link below).
• C-Bus from Clipsal Integrated Systems Pty. Ltd.
  C-Bus is a bus for Lightning Control, A driver with FBoxes exists at Engiby (see link below).

The nowadays obsolete "Mode D" has been used for exchanging data between PCD systems and for accessing the PCD systems from a PC. The PGU mode of early PCD systems has been based on this communication mode.

History
Early PCD systems used the P800 protocol which bases on the Mode D as PGU protocol (for configuring and programming a PCD as well as for data exchange from and to the PCDs). The Mode D telegrams are in accordance with ISO 1745, IBM BSC (first defined by IBM in 1970, in the "IBM bisync publication) and DIN 66019 and has been used on serial lines.
Over the years the mode D became obsolete and has been replaced by much more powerful communication protocols which are not only implemented for serial interfaces (on the PCD these are e.g. Serial-S-Bus, Ether-S-Bus, Profi-S-Bus, FTP, http etc.). Due to this fact, the Mode D is no longer supported by recent PCD systems.

Systems supporting the "Mode D"
The Mode D is no longer used for PGU communication, and PCD systems which have been developed after the PCD2.M110/M120 do use S-Bus as PGU protocol. In a second step, the Mode D (SD/MD mode) has been removed from the firmware. Please refer to the table below which indicates the PCD systems which do support the Mode D:

The library Belimo 2.5.300 does not work with the card PCD3.F281 if you use the both channels of this card.

It is important to know that the Belimo library 2.5.300 is provided by default with PG5 1.4.300.

To use the card PCD3.F281, it is recommanded to install the library Belimo 2.5.301 or a later version.

You can find these libraries on the support site.
The path is: Software -> PG5 -> FBox libraries

Yes. This switch makes a refresh of the signal and the switchs can be used in cascade. The maximum distance between one switch and another is 100m.

In case your PC does not answer to a ICMP ping, it is very likely that your Windows Firewall is blocking the communication. In case you don't have "admin" rights to disable it, this FAQ might be useful...

Symptom
If you boot your computer without having a network connection, the Windows Firewall may block the communication to your computer. As result, even a "Ping" will not be answered by the concerned PC/Laptop.

Procedure for disabling the Windows Firewall
There is a way to disable the automatic Windows Firewall (installed per default for Windows XP) even if you don't have administrator rights.

• Go to the windows "Start" menu and select "Run".
• From there, open "services.msc" and a new window will open.
• On the right side, browse down until you'll find "Windows Firewall/Internet Connection Sharing (ICS)".
• Click on it with right mouse button down and select "Stop".

After having done so, you just disabled the automatic Windows Firewall. Don't forget to enable it again later. SBC does not take any responsability for problems caused by disabling the firewall.

Concerned PCD systems: All LON supported PCD systems

Problem
The Profi S-Link cable is not working anymore with newer firmwares. PCD3.M5xxx: 018; PCD2.M480: 025. The LED's are not switched on. Communication is not possible at all.

Reason
Due to a firmware bug, the 24 V power supply which is needed for the communication over Profi S-Link is no more supported on Port 10.

Solution
In the next official firmwares the problem will be corrected. If you need a urgent fix, contact our support support@saia-pcd.com to get the latest bugfix versions. (PCD3: #1B or higher; PCD2.M480: #26 or higher)

No, on the PCD a reduced RS 232 can be used (PCD7.F520 / one part of PCD7.F522). However, some communication partners will need full RS 232. In this case you can maybe handle it with a bridge or you have to use a Full RS 232 Port on the PCD, too (PCD7.F120 / PCD7.F522).

Yes, there are PCDs that support the transmission of EMails over an SMTP server if they are equipped with Ethernet interface.

The PCD types that support this feature are:

- PCD1.M1x5, PCD2.M150, PCD2.M170 and the PCD4.M170 equipped with PCD7.F650 or PCD7.F655.

- PCD1.Mxxx0, PCD2.M5xx0, PCD3.Mxxx and PCD7.D4xxxT5F (with Ethernet option).

Principle
The PCDs mentioned does support a System Function (SF) for sending (but not receiving) EMails over the SMTP (Simple Mail Transport Protocol). For sending the message, the SF is called and the subject, message content (text only) as well as the (multiple) recipients and the sender of the message are passed to the SF.
After that, the FW will handle the transmission by itself. If the server is not available, it is indicated in the diagnostics.

Programming
There are FBoxes available for sending the mails with or without password and with/without attachement.
It is also possible to use this functionality in IL.

Restrictions
Actually it's not possible to send EMails over SSL.
Therefore it's necessary to connect to a SMTP Server which does not require a SSL connection.

Only the PCD3.Mxxx, PCD1.Mxxx0 and the PCD2.M5xx0 support an authentification method (AUTH LOGIN and AUTH PLAIN) with unencrypted transmission of the password, but without SSL transmission.
Therefore with the other PCD, the SMTP server must allow sending EMails without requiring an authentification.
Since most mail providers found on the internet do absolutely require an authentification, it is possible to use their service for sending EMails only with the PCD3.Mxxx, PCD1.Mxxx0, PCD2.M5xxx or with a PCD7.D4xxxT5F.

PCD firmware versions
The following PCD firmware (FW) versions are the minimal versions that EMail functionality. However, it is strongly recommended using the latest official firmware version of the relevant systems.

For a good communication result the repeater must be configurated

 A repeater is used for decoupling RS 485 network.

The PCD7 T 100 reprocess signals and the electrical isolation of individual selection of the line.

The following settings are important for a good communication result:

Baudrate: (max 500 KBit ) DIL Switch SW1

Switchtime                           DIL Switch SW2

Termination for both networks (SW3 ex. side / SW4 trunkside)

Connection of non SBC devices:
Normally, the following symbols are used:

SBC                 Non SBC devices
D →                         D-
/D →                        D+
Rx →                        -Rx
/Rx →                      +Rx
Tx →                         -Tx
/Tx →                       +Tx

for more details see also: Manual 26_740_E4 RS 485 - Inst. Komp

An oscilloscope is an excellent tool for debugging RS 485 networks, as common errors like missing terminations, crossed lines, missing shield/ground connections can be detected. The attached Powerpoint document contains oscilloscope screenshots of the mentioned wiring problems, so you know what to look for.

The tool tracewin.exe is a small executable that records the communication between Saia PG5® and the S-Bus communicaiton driver. It is very useful in order to analyze the communication between Saia PG5® and the PCD's.

Since it logs the information of the SCommDll, it may also be used for recording S-Bus traffic of the SBC OPC server or any other software using the SBC S-Bus driver.

Opening Tracewin
The tool Tracewin is installed in the installation folder of Saia PG5® (default location: C:\Program Files\SAIA-Burgess\PG5 1_3\Tracewin.exe). It is to be called by double clicking it.

As soon it is called, the follwing window will be opened:

Configuring Tracewin
In order to record only the data needed, the "SComm Trace Options..." of the menu "File" can be adjusted.
E.g. the checkbox "Lock, Event, Critical" is only used in rare situations (but doubles the size of captured data if checked) and therefore narmally may stay unchecked. Below an example of the "SComm Trace Options" that suits in most cases:

In case no communication can be established, it can be helpful enabling all checkboxes in order to receive as many information as possible. As the file will be pretty small anyways, the additional lines won't bother much. 

Storing recorded data
The buffer finally may be stored with "Save as..." and then be viewed by any other text editor.
(The recorded data is very useful for the SBC support team in case you encounter a communicaton related problem.)

Yes, the product Saia PCD® COSinus (PCD8.DNET-SUITE) does also contain the SBC S-Bus libraries (S-Bus Master and/or S-Bus Slave) based on the Microsoft .Net framework.

How is the Saia PCD® COSinus structured?
The Saia PCD® COSinus contains different components (S-Bus Master, S-Bus Slave, an interface for CGI calls to the PCD Web Server etc.) for easy integration of the communication interface for PCD systems into Windows applications. All the components are based on the Microsoft .Net framework.

This product (PCD8.DNET-SUITE) does contain the required libraries, documentation, examples (programmed in C#, C++ and VB) as well as access to updates and new features.

How do I get the Saia PCD® COSinus Suite?
The Saia PCD® COSinus Suite is an official product from Saia-Burgess Controls AG and can be optained from your local SBC representative (or support@saia-pcd.com)

Remarks

• The product Saia PCD® COSinus can't be found yet on the support homepage www.sbc-support.ch (the TI will be uploaded soon).
  
• The Saia PCD® COSinus suite is the replacement for the inofficial SCommDll toolkit which has been available until November 2007. The SCommDll toolkit is discontinued and is no longer available.
  

The choice of communication protocols is huge, and a lot of them can be used together with our products. Please refer to the overview pages section of the supportsite www.sbc-support.ch for more details.

The firmware features of the PCD CPU's allow to realize virtually every protocol based on Ethernet or serial connections. If you don't find the protocol you search for in the above mentioned overview, please contact one of our system partners (for instance www.engiby.ch). They have already created numerous drivers and have got a profound knowledge of our products, which allows them to create new drivers in resonable time.