Manual

139
DXi User Manual
Appendix E: Hardwired Communication Troubleshooting
Please note, if maintenance is being performed on a controller or a controller is
powered down in a group, this will result in generation of communication related
alerts.
Communication with Laguna Central Software
Communication with central software should be robust, especially for submasters
communicating to Laguna via an Ethernet LAN connection. Wireless
communication to Laguna from the submaster will be subject to errors and retries,
especially compared to Ethernet LAN. Bottom line, no one controller in a hardwired
group should experience an excess of communication failures compared to the other
controllers in the group. If a specific controller in a controller group fails more, in
comparison to the others, this is not normal operational behavior and connections,
field wiring and/or hardware should be inspected.
Diagnostic View
The DXi controller provides a useful diagnostic screen to triage and gauge controller-
to-controller communication health. The diagnostic screen can be accessed by
navigating to, Main Menu -> Reports & Diagnostics -> FLOWMAX and is shown
below in figure 3.
Initiate a large communication (Statistics Upload or Program Upload/Download all
Satellites) from Laguna Central Software to the suspect controller and monitor the
diagnostic screen for 'Bad Packets' and 'Retry Packets'. If 'Bad Packets' and/or 'Retry
Packets' are being generated as a result of the central communication, this is not
normal operational behavior, and connections, field wiring and/or hardware should
be inspected.
Controller Address Generation
Under normal operating conditions all downstream controllers wired to the
submaster should be provided an address by the submaster. For Example, if the
submaster uses address 001-00, the next controller downstream will be given address
001-01 and it will be displayed on the UI. Each successive downstream controller will
be incremented by 1 (001-02, 001-03 ….). If any downstream controller reverts to its
default address of 239-239, this is not normal operational behavior, and connections,
field wiring and/or hardware should be inspected.
Good Packets 024033
Bad Packets 000017
Retry Packets 000000
Lost Sats 000000
My Address 1-0
Max Address 1-5
Min Flow Max 1-0
Last Comm 27 mins ago
FLOW MAX Comm
|Comm|Devices|Status
WED 5:43:40 PM