Generic IEC61850 IED

Connectivity Package v2.4.3

Release

2011-08-19

Release Notes

Copyright 2011 ABB Switzerland, Power Systems

ABB Switzerland Ltd. Release Notes Generic IEC6180 IED
Connectivity Package
v.2.4.3

Connectivity package version 2.4

New Features

“Documentation” menu item now available (E_ABB_PR_12582)

The “Documentation” menu item is now supported if you right-click on a
IEC61850 IED object in PCM600. By this way you can get fast access to the
document “Generic IEC61850 IED Connectivity Package User’s Guide”.

Error Corrections

Better handling of communication failures (E_ABB_PR_12405)

In case of a communication failure to an IEC61850 IED the former versions of the
Generic IEC61850 IED Connectivity Package (up to version 2.1.1) created a
pseudo entry “Failure when trying to read DR file directory "<directory>" from
IED "<IED name>"” in the table “Available Recordings in IED”, together with a
warning message. The new version 2.4 of this Connectivity Package does no
longer create such pseudo entries, but shows an error message “IED "<IED
name>" is not online or communication problem” instead.

Re-gain compatibility to Disturbance Handling Tool of PCM600

The Disturbance Handling Tool (DHT) changed a lot in PCM600 version 2.3
regarding its GUI, and also its internal handling towards the Connectivity
Packages was implemented much stricter. This caused compatibility problems with
the released version 2.1.1 of the Generic IEC61850 IED Connectivity Package.
These compatibility problems have been solved in this new version 2.4.

Debug message «Number of files found» showed wrong number

of files (E_ABB_PR_17932)
The message “Number of files found = nn”, which can only been seen when debug
mode output is enabled in PCM600 (Ctrl+Alt+D), erroneously showed 1 file when
the directory string from the IED was empty. This problem has been corrected

Improvements
To ensure downwards compatibility to PCM600 versions 2.1. or 2.2 the former
version 2.1.1 of the Generic IEC61850 IED Connectivity Package is installed in
parallel and will be automatically activated if such a PCM600 version is used.
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ABB Switzerland Ltd. Release Notes Generic IEC6180 IED
Connectivity Package
v.2.4.3

Connectivity package version 2.4.1

This release 2.4.1 is a pure bug fix release to the previous release 2.4.

Error Corrections

Error opening Generic IEDs context menu (E_ABB_PR_18508)

When right-clicking on a Generic IEC61850 IED to get its context menu there
were error messages on operating systems Windows Vista and Windows 7, and the
“Documentation” menu item was not shown. This was due to a key that was read
in the Windows registry with read-write mode. This was fixed by using read-only
mode now.

Connectivity package version 2.4.2

This release 2.4.2 is a bug fix release to the previous releases 2.4 and 2.4.1 with
the goal to support much more different IED types.

Error Corrections

Disturbance Record upload from Areva IED fails

(E_ABB_PR_17499)
The Generic IEC6180 IED Connectivity Package internally converted all DR file
names found in the IEDs to uppercase letters, but Areva IEDs expect them to be in
the exact casing of letters. This problem has been fixed.

Disturbance Record upload from GE IED fails

(E_ABB_PR_17672)
GE IEDs seem to be some “dummy” DR files having zero channels, zero number
of samples and timestamps of 1970-01-01. Such invalid DR files are ignored now.

While fixing this problem another problem in the PCM600 Disturbance Handling
Tool (DHT) was revealed, because in DR files from GE IEDs the value for
‘number of sample rates’ (refered as nsamp in the COMTRADE standard) is zero.
This confuses the DHT tool such that after successful upload of the DR files
duplicate rows are shown, one for the DR in the IED showing the correct trigger
time and another row for the uploaded DR file on the PC showing by mistake the
start time of the DR instead of the trigger time. The same problem has also been
observed on some types of SIEMENS IEDs. A problem report has been issued to

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ABB Switzerland Ltd. Release Notes Generic IEC6180 IED
Connectivity Package
v.2.4.3

the PCM600 DHT, and it will be fixed in a later PCM600 version.

Property “Path for disturbance records in IED” wrongly handled

if last character was a backslash
If the last character was a backslash (‘\’) in the value of the property “Path for
disturbance records in IED” a forward slash character (‘/’) was added by mistake,
making the DR directory reading impossible for some IED types. This problem has
been fixed.

Improvements

Improved handling for ABB REx670, REx650 and REx630 IEDs

The ABB IED types REx670, REx650 and REx630 list two sets of files for each
disturbance record: drec_<nnn>.zip (containing *.cfg, *.dat and *.hdr files) and
drec_<nnn>h.zip (containing only *.hdr files). The Generic IEC61850 IED
Connectivity Package now ignores these partially redundant drec_<nnn>h.zip
files.

Suppress warning messages for optional COMTRADE files

If uploading or deleting optional COMTRADE files (*.hdr or *.inf) fails no
warning messages are displayed any longer. Such problems will only be reported if
the debug mode is activated in PCM600.

Connectivity package version 2.4.3

This release 2.4.3 is a pure bug fix release to the previous releases 2.4. 2.4.1 and
2.4.2.

Error Corrections

Message is no recording reading info from REF 543 IED

(E_ABB_PR_20238)
Parsing the sampling rate (a floating point number) in the *.CFG files failed on
regional settings not using the decimal point (e.g. Finnish). This problem has been
corrected.

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ABB Switzerland Ltd. Release Notes Generic IEC6180 IED
Connectivity Package
v.2.4.3

Opening DHT for Generic IED at wrong time => PCM gets stuck
(E_ABB_PR_20250)
Scheduler remains reading for generic IED (E_ABB_PR_20266)
There was a deadlock situation when the Connectivity Package was used in
Scheduler mode, and also sometimes when used in interactive mode. This problem
has been corrected.

SVC: Deleting DR files on REB500 from PCM600 is inconsistent

(E_ABB_PR_20575)
After approx. 1 second the REB500 responded with a status of 0 to the file
deletion. The Generic IEC61850 IED ConnPack wrongly treated the IEC61850
OPC Server status 0 as error and expected some code in the range 1000 .. 8999 as
success error codes. This is according to the documentation of the manual
1MRS755321 "MicroSCADA Pro: IEC 61850 Master Protocol (OPC) *1.1",
section 5.4. Therefore the deletion request was wrongly retried two times. This
wrong interpretation of the IEC61850 OPC Server status codes has been corrected.

Documentation Updates
The document “Generic IEC61850 IED Connectivity Package User’s Guide” (file
“Generic IEC61850 IED ConnPack Users Guide.pdf”, ID 1KHA001027-UEN)
has been largely revised to reflect the changes done in the new version 2.4.x of the
Generic IEC61850 IED Connectivity Package and the modified user interface of
PCM600 version 2.4.

Installation
Double click on the file “ABB Generic IEC61850 IED Connectivity Package
Ver. 2.4.3.msi”and follow the instructions on the screen. See also chapter 2:
“Installation and uninstallation” of document “Generic IEC61850 IED
Connectivity Package User’s Guide” (file “Generic IEC61850 IED ConnPack
Users Guide.pdf”, document ID 1KHA001027-UEN)

Hardware and Software Requirements

• Hardware requirements and supported operating systems: Same as PCM 600

Mandatory software together with Generic IEC6180 IED Connectivity Package:

• PCM600, minimal version 1.5. PCM600 version 2.0 SP2 or later
recommended.

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ABB Switzerland Ltd. Release Notes Generic IEC6180 IED
Connectivity Package
v.2.4.3

• For PCM600 version 1.5 only: IEC61850 Connectivity Package, minimal

version 1.1 (used for IEC61850 protocol support).

Upgrading from Previous Revisions

No limitations. The Generic IEC6180 IED Connectivity Package version 2.4 (or
higher) must be selected by the Update Manager tool. Previous versions of this
connectivity package may be installed in parallel.

Generic IEC6180 IED Connectivity Package version 2.4.x is a bug fix release
replacing former versions 2.1 and 2.1.1, but remains fully compatible to it.

Testing Notice
The Generic IEC6180 IED Connectivity Package has been tested with the
following devices:
• ABB REx670 Firmware version 1.1 or higher
• ABB REx650 Firmware version 1.0 or higher
• ABB REx630 Firmware version 1.0 or higher
• ABB REx615 Firmware version 3.0 or higher
• ABB REB500 Firmware version 7.40 or higher
• ABB REF542plus
(via SPA-ZC40x) Firmware version 3.0 or higher
• ABB REx541/543/545
(via SPA-ZC40x)
• SIEMENS 7SA612
• SIEMENS 6MD66
• SIEMENS 7UT61
• SIEMENS 7SJ80
• Areva P632
• Areva P439
• GE D60

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ABB Switzerland Ltd. Release Notes Generic IEC6180 IED
Connectivity Package
v.2.4.3

Setting of property “Path for disturbance

records in IED”
For most IED types the default setting (an asterisk ‘*’) of the property “Path for
disturbance records in IED” is appropriate. However this setting has to be adapted
at least for the following types of IEDs:
• For ABB REx615, REF542plus, REx541/543/545 and similar IED types
connected via a SPA-ZC40x device (“dongle”): Use COMTRADE\
• For Areva IEDs: Use COMTRADE/

Known Limitations
• DR upload is not possible for SEL (Schweitzer Electronic Laboratories) IEDs
because these IEDs only support DR upload using ftp but not by IEC61850
MMS.
• Some IED types (e.g. SIEMENS, Areva) do not support DR deletion in the
IED at all.
• On ABB REB500 IEDs only the oldest disturbance record can be deleted.
• On ABB REx670 IEDs of firmware versions 1.0 and 1.1 deletion of specific
disturbance records is not working. Only all DRs can be deleted.
• Deleting many disturbance records on ABB REx670, REx650 and REx630
IEDs may take rather a long time (a few minutes) until the list of recordings in
the IED is appropriately refreshed.
• The Scheduler operation only works if no PCM600 project is open at the same
time, otherwise you will get communication failure messages.