Siemens Drive Firmware Update
Stephaine Zitzow
Recently, I received a v90 drive to control a small servo. However, the drive came with firmware 1.03, and TIA Portal v15.1 will only let me work with 1.04 (it explicitly does not allow me to downgrade it in the project).
I attempted to upgrade the firmware in the drive using the instructions provided by Siemens and the files available for download. The process started normally, the LED's in the drive were okay (RDY red led constant, COM orange, flashing) meaning the upgrade was underway.
I've checked all the obvious parameters (e.g.: p29000 set to the Drive ID in the plate, 42) and noticed that TIA Portal would still let me do commissioning. However, no matter what settings I chose for the auto-tunning, the drive would perform jerky movements and fail to perform a complete turn.
I then tried to connect to it using V-Assistant and a USB cable. The connection was made successfully, I checked all the parameters and everything seemed in order. But upon trying to use the "One Button Auto Tunning" from V-Assistant, the process was abruptly aborted with an error window telling me to check the drive for faults. No fault or alarm was presented in V-Assistant or the front panel of the drive.
However, after I disconnected the cable and once again tried to commission it with TIA Portal, I got a new error. 7995 with sub-information 45. Now, anytime I enable the servo, I get this error and I can no longer move the motor at all.
The drive has already been replaced before (last drive was firmware 1.02, it failed the update in similar circumstances) and I'm afraid I can't get a replacement for the drive or the motor in time for this project.
Not the firmware: that was impossible and never managed to upgrade. However, a Siemens technician told me that, when adding hardware to the project, you can click that "Information" tab beneath the Hardware Catalog. It will display information about the currently select hardware in the hardware catalog, and allow you to select the correct firmware before dragging it into the project.
If I had to guess, something failed a few days ago when I started tuning the machine, some internal memory bit got SET, and never got RESET again for whatever reason. Enabling the drive with no Power Line feed allows it to perform the Motor ID check without injecting current into the Servo, and subsequently, not receiving an anomalous feedback from it.
Regretably, I must add that this solution was a short lived one. It worked for a ful afternoon, but on the very next day, the Drive went back to it's old ways and is throwing Fault 7995 around like it's going out of style.
If that is an option, perhaps try that. If it suddenly starts working without faults, perhaps a bit sloppier than with encoder feedback, and works for say 2x longer than when the encoder feedback is integrated with the motor control, you definitely have an encoder problem.
The first one had me look upstream, wondering if maybe not enough current (or no current at all) was reaching the servo. I can confirm this is not the case. The error is printed as soon as I enable the servo. From the documentation, it seems there's a small routine that is ran every time the Servo is enabled: it injects current into the servo, reads the feedback, and determines if everything is okay. Looking at the Sub-Information table for this error, that's over 20 different things that can wrong with this test.
My guess is that the servo itself might be fried. I measured it's resistances a while ago. 5 Ohm from U to V, 5 Ohm from V to W and 8 Ohm from W to U. Yesterday however, I only had 2 Ohm from W to U, and Tia Portal is finally returning me some "Ground Fault" errors on this thing.
New versions of firmware (2.5, 2.6, 4.3, etc) come out usually with an updated version of Starter, but it may not always be the case. Service packs and hotfixes get released more frequently, based on severity of issues fixed in firmware. SPs and HFs are not dependent on the release of Starter. If a new version of firmware comes out after a version of Starter is already released, a SSP (service support package) gets released for that firmware. After installing SSP, it is possible to go online and work with the later version of Sinamics firmware.
An effort is made to coincide the release of software and firmware together, but that is not always the case. That is where the concept of TIAPortal comes in: all Siemens software will eventually migrate to that platform. A new version of TIAPortal will come out once a year and all associated add-ons (Step7, WinCC Flex, Start drive) will be updated only at the time of that release.
Documentation that comes with Starter, DrivesES, Step7 and other Siemens software includes a compatibility chart that outlines which versions of Windows, other Siemens software and firmware does this particular version of software is compatible with.
A firmware upgrade is done by copying new firmware on the flash card: CU320 is powered down, flash card removed, plugged into the PC, new firmware copied on the card, and the drive program re-downloaded. Changes from different versions of hotfixes are minimal: addressing usually specific issues encountered somewhere in the world. If the system currently running without problems with different hotfixes it is not really necessary to change the firmware. If the firmware version (2.6 for example) was different, then it is a different story.
We had an issue on a machine which has a motor driven by G120C. After applying a few ideas and changing some parameters, we decided to download backed-up parameters from our TIA14 back to G120C, but we realised we had a firmware difference. An external company worked on this a few years ago and I don't understand how they managed to set everything up if the firmware is not the same.
We downloaded parameters from TIA to G120C. On our TIA14 we have firmware version 4.7.6 and on our G120C we have firmware version 4.7.10. I tried to search on the Siemens support page to upgrade/downgrade our firmware version but I could not find any downloadable version for our drive.
This might be a basic question: We use the same PG for our whole factory, so if I upgrade firmware on my TIA14, would it have any consequences for future downloads on other drives or does this firmware update stay only within a project we made an update on?
Change the Firmware version to that drive in the HW config. The newest firmware TIA14 supports is 4.7.10. Right click on the drive, and select Change device. Then you select the same MLFB number and select the firmware to 4.7.10. Then compile the hardware and download the hardware.
If you change the firmware version of one drive, it doesn't affect the other drives in the project. You can have several different firmware version in one project. Basically if you have 5 G120C's, all of them can have different firmware versions in the same project.
Install the latest updates and HSP's to your TIA installation. Latest V14 is SP1 Upd 10. Attached is a picture, with these versions and latest HSP's, you will have 4.7.10 available to choose from.
Is it a smart idea to downgrade firmware from 4.7.10 to 4.7.6 on the drive itself? Our TIA updater can't connect to a server and this might be because windows 7 is not up to date. My colleagues don't want to make any updates because too many machines in our factory depend on that PG.
My issue, for 2 years now, is that I am unable to upload the parameters into my Portal project for this style of drive. (Earlier, it was a Simotion Scout project). I have tried support, I have tried my local contacts, I have waited and wished for new firmware and software. Working for an OEM, every month I have 1-4 of these drives to get running on medium-sized Simotion based machines.
Yes I can get the drive functioning, but my gripe is that, in proportion, I am spending an unreasonable amount of time on these G120C drives, for me to keep starting from the beginning using the commissioning wizard, motor ID, and going down through all the other parameters I need to change. The majority of these drives get the same parameters every time, so if I could just have a copy of the parameters in the engineering software, then I wouldn't be spending my friday evenings still at work near the end of every month like this.
have you check that the G120C in the project have alreads the Version V4.7?
If the device in Startdrive is projected with FW V4.6 then the Upload can ending in such errors, then you must update the device in the project to Version V4.7.
Prior to my first message, I had already completely deleted the 4.6 firmware drive from the project (highlight its name on the project tree and select delete). Because, if the drive is firmware 4.7, an attempt to upload aborts with the error message is that I cannot upload the drive because the firmware of the drive is 4.7 and the drive in the project is 4.6.