PLC-5/40E series D with Black Box LE180A

Looking to use Ignition at an existing facility where they have a custom/proprietary HMI project communicating to a PLC-5/40E series D over DH+. Looking at the ethernet port on this processor, which is a 15-pin D-shell connector and only 10MB. AB made a 15 pin to RJ45 adapter but it is now obsolete. I’ve confirmed with AB that the Black Box LE180A is a suitable adapter to use with this processor. Wondering if anyone has experience using Ignition to communicate with a PLC-5 with the 10MB (15-pin) ethernet port?

This customer would like to upgrade HMI/SCADA first (to save cost) and then upgrade the PLC-5 to CLX later down the road.

Thank you-

I have not, but since you can download and try ignition for free give it a try.

Thanks jlandwerlen. Hoping to confirm before purchasing the adapter is the main goal here. I have Ignition downloaded and have been through the certifications as well.

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FWIW in another life we used those for a different HMI product. Rhymes with under ware. Worked like a charm. No guarantee on Ignition though. I don’t think that the blackbox device does anything special with the signal though. I believe it is just an adapter that changed the medium from a CAT5e to a 15 pin device.

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Thank you bschroeder, that’s helpful. I expect Ignition should work as well, just wanted to check with the community before digging into it. Much appreciated.

It is. Any AUI to 10Base-T media converter will work. The trick is to have 10Mbit support at the switch, actually.

I have a customer with some leftover AUI connections on PLC-5, some sidecars some built-in. They are dramatically faster than DH+. Not that that is a high bar. /:

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Thanks for dredging that out. It’s been a minute since I’ve had to deal with them. But I do remember the speed increase was dramatic for the day. That same customer had other facilities that were completely based around pyramid integrators… you want to talk about slow.

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