Good day Gents,
I want your help to find out the procedure to upgrade the firmware of I/O cards and controller of delta V dydtem to 10.3v.
Thanx.
Khalid, Not sure what "dydtem" means. DeltaV controllers and IO Cards are upgraded using the "Controller Upgrade Utility". You can find documentation on this utility in Books On Line, under System Administration and MAintenance, Software, Software Updates. From the windows Start Menu, select DeltaV, Installation and Controller Upgrade Utility to launch the program.
You select the type of item you want to upgrade and the utilty will list all the applicable items and their current revision so you can select which item to upgrade.
For simplex cards and controllers, the upgrade must be done off line. For redundant cards and controllers, the standby card can be upgraded and then a switch over allows you to upgrade the other card. Always be patient and ensure the upgraded card has taken over control. For controllers, it can take several minutes for the upgraded controller to be downloaded and to become available, so check in diagnostics the Standby is available, perform the switch over and upgrade the second card.
For IO cards, an upgrade is not required to upgrade the system. IO cards will function with the upgraded controller as is. You might need to upgrade an IO card because of an issue resolved by the new firmware, but if you don't use the feature that has the issue, you can choose not to upgrade the card. Of course, if you are experiencing that issue, or there is a new feature that you wish to take advantage of, then you need to upgrade. However, the IO upgrade is not required to be done when the system is upgraded. You can upgrade the IO cards anytime to the latest version of IO Card. Always check the Guardian Website for the latest release notes and available hotfixes.
If you do upgrade an IO card, you can force Input signals from a card in the control modules so that when the IO card is flashed, it does not affect operations. This depends on how the signals are configured.
For Outputs, you would need to block the field devices as the outputs would reset after the flash. You'd need to line up the output signals to the field devices prior to unblocking them so the process is undisturbed. You'll have to decide is this is feasible, or you wait for a shutdown to upgrade the output cards.
If you're upgrading during a turnaround, then flashing/updating the IO cards can likely be done then without worrying about impact of outputs resetting. Remember that you do not need to upgrade your IO cards when you upgrade the controllers. Controllers will recognize and work with all versions of IO cards.
You should identify all IO cards and determine which ones need to be upgraded. If the upgrade is optional, you can leave it till the next shutdown. This will reduce the actual number of cards that need to be upgraded. The upgrade utility can help you identify what needs to be upgraded.
Also note that if you have Guarden Support, you can(if you haven't already) upload your system content file and get a report on your system status.
Andre Dicaire