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MV Drives
Black Box Manual
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................2
2. DATA LOGGER MANAGER .............................................................................................3
3. UPLOAD TOOL .................................................................................................................4
4. KNOWN LIMITATIONS .....................................................................................................6
5. DATA ANALYSIS ..............................................................................................................7
6. SUMMARY.........................................................................................................................8
Based on Project AMCOS
Prep. ATDD2 / TW 23.11.2010
Appr.
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Title Black Box Manual des. des.
Resp. dept.
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en 1.0
ABB Switzerland Ltd. No. of p. 9
1. Introduction
As the name already suggests there is a black box like in airplanes for MV drives. It’s an
event driven logger for offline root cause analysis and it’s available for all drives (with
AMC34 board and most recent software). It should simplify and accelerate the trouble-
shooting considerably.
The data is stored on the second FLASH on the AMC34 board. The logged data is time-
stamped and identified. It consists of two parts:
• Event, fault, alarm and user data journal
• Data logger save and manager
Logged data is:
• Data logger 1 & 2
o Save is done when triggered
o Restore from FLASH to RAM possible
• Events
• Faults
• Alarms
• Parameter changes
• SW version changes
• User functions (like switch position logger)
The FLASH has a size of 2MB. For each Data Logger (1 & 2) the last 14 trips are stored.
This takes 1.75 MB. The rest of the space 0.25 MB are used for the journal. The oldest
data is automatically overwritten when the FLASH is full (FIFO principle)
In the Loading Package there is the command line tool called BlackBox_Upload.exe it can
be used to perform the following actions:
• Erase the logger FLASH
• Upload logged data to the PC
One user function that is used on the black box is the Last Switched Position Logger. It
logs important data, coming from the INT board, preceding a trip.
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2. Data Logger Manager
In the group 106 there are parameters for the Data Logger management. Data loggers
stored to the flash can be restored to the RAM and uploaded with DriveDebug or
DriveMonitor one by one.
Every time the AMC data loggers are triggered (e.g. with a trip) they are automatically
copied to the black box logger flash. Max. 14 data logger trigger events can be stored in
the logger flash.
Data Logger Manager user interface handled through AMC Table parameter Group 106:
Index Text Description
10 DL AUTORESTART Auto Restart of DL after trip reset
11 DL1 MAX ARCHIVES DL1 maximal amount of data logger1 archives (stored data
logger sets)
Read only
12 DL2 MAX ARCHIVES DL2 maximal amount of data logger2 archives (stored data
logger sets)
Read only
13 DL1 USED ARCHIVES DL1 actual number of stored data logger1 archives (stored
data logger sets)
Read only
14 DL2 USED ARCHIVES DL2 actual number of stored data logger2 archives (stored
data logger sets)
Read only
15 DL1 RESTORE SEL Restore is only possible, if the data logger is NOT running.
DL1 which archive index to be restored to data logger 1
In restore mode, if != 0, indicating the restored index.
Enter the archive index to be restored. The index number
refers to archive to be restored. Index 1 is the latest; index 2 is
the one before and so on.
If request can’t be processed 0 is shown.
16 DL2 RESTORE SEL Restore is only possible, if the data logger is NOT running.
DL2 which archive index to be restored to data logger 2
In restore mode, if != 0, indicating the restored index.
Enter the archive index to be restored. The index number
refers to archive to be restored. Index 1 is the latest; index 2 is
the one before and so on.
If request can’t be processed 0 is shown.
17 DL RESET DL Reset loggers (return from restore mode)
18 DL1 TO FACTORY Reset DL1 to default values
19 DL2 TO FACTORY Reset DL2 to default values
The stored data loggers can be read using the BlackBox upload tool (see next chapter) or
by loading a stored data logger into the normal data logger memory:
• The signals 106.13 and 106.14 show the amount of stored data loggers.
• With parameter 106.15 and 106.16 one can select a data logger to be restored.
Data in the normal data logger memory will be overwritten.
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• After restoring it can be displayed using a standard DriveWare tool, DriveWindow
or DriveDebug, by opening the normal data logger 1 or 2 inside the tool.
• Finally the data logger mode needs to be reset with 106.17.
3. Upload tool
BlackBox_Upload.exe is the PC tool for uploading and maintaining the Black Box and
Data Logger Manager Archives stored on the AMC board.
3.1 Installing <BlackBox_Upload>
No installation needed. Exe file is in Loading Package after first execution of L_ACS.
3.2 Starting <BlackBox_Upload>
• Ensure that DriveDebug is installed - on your PC; BlackBox_Upload.exe uses the
same DLLs to communicate with the AMC board.
• Ensure that you have a proper communication with your system.
• Wait at least 1 minute after booting the AMC board.
• Open the DOS box.
• Execute BlackBox_Upload.exe with the command line parameters in question.
3.3 <BlackBox_Upload> Command Line Parameters
Command line: BlackBox_Upload <node> (options) ...
BlackBox_Upload connects to the AMC at <node>.
Options: Description:
/? Shows the command line options
/mbaud= Set link speed (only for PCMCIA and AMC3 CH3)
[default = 1 (no write to control register)
8=8MBaud
4=4MBaud
2=2MBaud
1=1MBaud)]
Faster speed is only possible if drive is not in ReadyRun, i.e. the drive is
either ReadyOn or Tripped.
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For faster speeds (2…8) use a point to point connection with PCMCIA
card. The USB adapter RUSB-02 does not support faster speeds.
/channel= Set the DDCS channel of the DDCS hardware.
(0 [default] or 1)
If both, PCMCIA and USB, adapter are installed, PCMCIA is always
channel 0 and USB channel 1.
If only one of them is installed it is always channel 0.
/bb_info Shows the Black Box logger info
Black Box logger enabled state, flash writer description and for each
flash sector the state, ...
/bb_upload_data Uploads the Black Box logger data.
The following files are written:
[Link] raw data in comma separated format
[Link] readable text file in comma separated format
[Link] comma separated format; one line for each black box
entry.
/bb_upload_image Uploads the Black Box logger flash sector image.
The following files are written:
[Link] raw data in comma separated format
[Link] readable text file in comma separated format
[Link] comma separated format; one line for each black box
entry.
/dl_info Shows the Data Logger Archive info
Data Logger Archive enabled state, archive description and for each
flash sector the state, ...
/dl_upload_data Uploads the Data Logger sector data
The following files are written:
[Link] raw data in comma separated format.
And for each data logger archive two files
DataLogger1_File00.DAT binary format
DataLogger1_File00.TXT text format
..
DataLogger1_File13.DAT binary format
DataLogger1_File13.TXT text format
DataLogger2_File14.DAT binary format
DataLogger2_File14.TXT text format
..
DataLogger2_File27.DAT binary format
DataLogger2_File27.TXT text format
/dl_upload_image Uploads the Data Logger flash sector image
The following files are written:
[Link] raw data in comma separated format.
And for each data logger archive two files
DataLogger1_File00.DAT binary format
DataLogger1_File00.TXT text format
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..
DataLogger1_File13.DAT binary format
DataLogger1_File13.TXT text format
DataLogger2_File14.DAT binary format
DataLogger2_File14.TXT text format
..
DataLogger2_File27.DAT binary format
DataLogger2_File27.TXT text format
/erase_flash Erases the complete logger flash.
Each session writes the screen output to the file <BlackBox_Upload.log>.
N.B. No target information is used in the file names. When doing several uploads in the same directory
(i.e. multi drives) the files will be overwritten.
3.4 Examples
A typical batch file for uploading the logger data from inside the loading package folder looks like:
if not exist .\Uploads\nul md Uploads
cd Uploads
..\Prog\BlackBox_Upload.exe 1 /mbaud=8 /bb_upload_data >nul
cd ..
Hint: Suppressing the output to the screen with ‘> nul’ speeds up the uploading process.
For erasing the flash:
@echo Do you really want to erase the logger flash? If not press Ctrl-C!
@pause
if not exist .\Uploads\nul md Uploads
cd Uploads
..\Prog\BlackBox_Upload.exe 1 /mbaud=8 /erase_flash
cd ..
The data and log-file will be stored in the defined folder (e.g. Uploads). The file [Link] is
meant to be used for fault analysis. The other 2 CSV-files contain only intermediate and debugging data.
4. Known limitations
The BlackBox upload tool has a few known limitations:
• The upload of a completely full logger flash may take some minutes because the
tool has to load all related fault and parameter texts from the target.
Currently there is no possibility to just upload the latest ‘x’ events or all new events
since the last upload.
If such a feature is needed please place your request at the MV Drives support
line.
• The upload tool uses a system buffer inside the AMC operating system during
uploading.
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It has to share the buffer with other internal function executions. Therefore it is
recommended to do the upload only when the drive is offline (MCB open).
If the system buffer is reserved by the tool and the tool closes abnormally it is not
possible to release the buffer anymore; one way is to reboot the AMC board.
The fault message is the following:
OS-buffer reservation
***ERROR (503 – Operating system buffer already reserved.) !
After booting it takes at least one minute until the OS buffer is released for use.
Please wait that time before starting the upload tool.
• One limitation of the RUSB-02 DDCS USB-adapter is:
It works smoothly only with a baud rate of 1 or 2 MBaud. Using a higher baud rate
makes the communication unstable and slower.
5. Data analysis
As mentioned above the most important file is the [Link] It contains the whole
journal after a “/bb_upload_data” command. Each line corresponds to one entry and the
data is comma separated. For a detailed analysis use Excel and proceed as shown on
image 1.
Figure 1: [Link] in Excel
To get the right time display set the time format to “hh:mm:ss.000”.
An additional feature using the black box is the Last Switch Position Logger. It stores
the data also in the black box and is visible in the [Link]. For an analysis of this
data please use the attached Analyzer Excel Sheet.
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Figure 2: Last Switch Position Logger
As shown on figure 2 the last switch position logger logs important data preceding a trip:
• Switching vectors
• Currents
• DC-link voltages
6. Summary
• The black box stores data on the second flash of the AMC board.
• Use the BlackBox_Upload.exe tool to get the journal and open the file
[Link] in Excel.
• The last 14 data loggers are also stored in the flash. The upload tool is the same
as for the previous point. The stored data loggers can also be loaded to the RAM
(group 106) and downloaded with DriveWindow or DriveDebug.
• Last Switch Position information is also stored in the BBRecords file and can be
analyzed using the attached Excel sheet.
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REVISION
Rev. Page (P) Description Date
ind. Chapt.(C) Dept./Init.
Initial revision. 23.11.2010
ATDD / TW
Changes according to demands of Service 25.11.2010
ATDD / TW
Doc. kind Project AMCOS
Title Black Box Manual
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Lang. Rev. ind. Pages 9
ABB Switzerland Ltd. en 1.0 No. of p. 9
