Beckhoff troubleshooting

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Beckhoff troubleshooting

As we don't really handle any logic minus the motor record aliasing, there isn't much to go wrong (in theory) - sometimes for numerous reasons such as motion logic changing etc. the .tpy file that maps over memory addresses to human readable names can go out of date.

The first thing to do if an issue occurs is open a device screen which is pointing to the "Beckhoff engineering view" and check all axes for an error ID. note you have to press the load button to load an axis. If the records in here are in link alarm, it's likely that there is a comms issue OR the TPY file is out of date - see below. **If not, and there are error IDs for any axis, the beckhoff has thrown an error. You may be able to hit "reset" and resolve this, if not contact the IESG or the IDD Motion team. **

"TPY file needs updating"

If nothing whatsoever is working, moves aren't sending and enabling/disabling is not working, an outdated .tpy file could be the cause.

To remedy this:

1. Stop the TC IOC from IBEX.
2. Obtain a valid/up to date .tpy file, either sent from the motion team or from the controller (usually under C:\TwinCAT\3.1\Boot\Plc\, named port_852.tpy, you can remote desktop in using the PLC's IP address and use a file explorer to copy it from its Windows environment)
3. Place above .tpy file in C:\Instrument\Settings\Config\NDX<instname>\configurations\twincat\ - it will need to be called whatever it was before or whatever it was in the config (it's passed in via a macro) - it's usually called tc_project_app.tpy
4. Start the TC IOC again from IBEX. This should re-generate the .db file in the above directory and you should now have working communication. The table of motors may take a while to update so to check if things are working it may be easiest to use the Beckhoff Engineering device screen. If this does not exist on an instrument, create it.

Safety systems

Safety systems such as light curtains or bump strips will throw the controller into error (and usually disable all axes) as opposed to just stopping movement like on a Galil. The green reset button on each beamline should clear the error and re-enable.

Motor not responding to set points, no errors in log, "controller error" message

In this case, navigating to the TwinCAT Beckhoff Controller OPI, selecting the troublesome axis, then pressing "load" then "reset" cleared the issue.

currentTime::getCurrentTime(): time discontinuity detected

This is a weird error that seems to occur sometimes when running a Beckhoff simulator on a dev machine. To stop it you need to do run unsettick.bat script in tcioc\master and reboot. NB this should never happen on an instrument machine as they do not run simulated Beckhoffs.

Twincat Beckhoff Engineering View

Error: xxxxx

To resolve, a physical restart was necessary - Contact Electrical and Electronic User Support Group to resolve Once a physical restart has taken place, load each axis and reload to check the error status has returned back to 0.