Have a number of Big Brothers BB which randomly loose their analogue value engineering units and labels. Controllers still retain their inputs,output, programs and PID loops. It is only analogue values that are affected. Version of Big Brothers is latest version 65.9 and T3000 software is at version Nov 22 2024. Issue is serious as each time controllers loose their settings programs stop working.
The only thing that comes to mind would be the flash chip wearing out, if you were writing the range value continually it could potentially cause problems. Are there any devices on the network which may be writing often to the controllers?
How many out of how many on this site are acting up?
Are there other sites acting up?
Could you send us the prog file, send to support at temcocontrols dot com
Seriously, flash chip wearing out? I know how a flash chip works and can have a limitation on number of writes, but when it is only the variables that loose their settings it does not explain why other software point definitions and programs are not lost. We have 3 separate sites and with about 5 BB’s. I really need this sorted out ASAP otherwise will need to send them all back for a refund
We’ll get this sorted out. The flash chips in general have a limited number of rewrites, its in the millions of operations and only becomes an issue if you are hammering the device thousands of times per hour, sounds like its not a factor in this case.
To clarify the number of cases, its three different sites with 5 BB, how many of the five BBs are exhibiting the issue and is there any sort of pattern to it. Always the same 3 of 5 bbs but never the other two for example. Any clues like this will be helpful.
Are there any other devices in the system whcih could possibly be reading and writing to the BB’s?
Can we please get a copy of the porgram file, you can email it to the email address above. If you need help on how to save the program you can let me know.
When this happens do the range settings go blank, do they become random garbage values, or do they revert to default? The default value of units is “not used” as shown at Tab2, which is internally handled as ‘0’ which would be different than if it reverted to a random value.
Are you using custom naming for the inputs like I show at Tab3, or perhaps you are not using the custom naming at all, the defaults are IN1,IN2 as you see at Tab4. Were these custom names, if you are using custom names, were these clobbered as well? We need to get a feel for these events.
Thanks for getting back to me. All range settings revert to unused - No garbage at all. We are using custom labels because without a customer label the BACNet HMI/BMS cannot read/see the analogue values. All customer labels are totally lost.
Chelsea will get together with the team and see what we can come up with. If I understand it correctly just the VARIABLES and only the analog range setting and 8 character names are lost. The binary VARIABLES are not affected, their range setting and 8 char labels are intact.
The rest of the system like the inputs, outputs, PIDS and programs are also unaffected.
The only thing I can think of is perhaps there’s some bad write commands on the network coming from… somewhere. Are there any controllers or PCs in the system that could be writing to the BB devices?
This is unlike anything we have ever seen. Perhaps there is something in your program that will give us some clues, would you mind to email that to us privately.
Re-reading this just now with Chelsea, I see you mentioning a Bacnet HMI in the system, we’re now guessing this is sending something on the network that it shouldnt. Wireshark will help diagnose this.
According to what you describe seems it is caused by RAM error. We guess you use BACNet HMI/BMS to read and write T3-BB, maybe cause overrun. Can you tell us how the BACnet HMI/BMS communicate with T3-BB in detail? We can set up a similar environment here to try and duplicate the problem.
Or send a wireshark capture, we can learn a lot from that.
Hi Chelsea, we use Ethernet BACnet IP. We do not use any RS485 communication ports. HMI/BMS only polls data from BB when a graphic is being display. We use poll because your hardware does not support COV subscription which would reduce network traffic over polling. When a graphic opens pol rate is about 5 seconds. Maximum number of data points on graphic panel would be 50 points. We have not been able to replicate issue and it is random. We did change one of the BB controllers and issue is still present. We replaced the BB back in September and it lost it’s parameters last week. The BB in question only has about 32 system variables defined and 2 very simple basic programs.16 Digital Inputs, 8 Digital outputs. Not sure how you can simulate issue as we have a BB that does not use any system variables so we though we would configure every single variable that is available in the BB. We have also put a program in that changes the system variable values every few seconds. This BB hasn’t lost it’s system variables and its been running for a couple of month now.
I can sugest sending a wireshark capture of the worst case situation, we can create a program to duplicate that polling and watch it run for some time here.
We would like to confirm whether the lost data is related to polling of the Bacnet HMI/BSM. The lost data is Bacnet AV’s, we are guessing the polling issue is related to the Bacnet AV’s since the Bacnet Binary BVs are not affected. I will use Yabe to read and write the AV’s to duplicate your environment. A wireshark capture of your network traffic during the worst case haeviest polling would be very helpful, we can see the timing and set up an exact test here.