Honeywell TDC3000 – Training

This content has been developed as a training module to give the user an overview of the Honeywell TDC3000 Distributed Control System (DCS). It also contains some information on the predecessor to that system – the TDC2000 system. The information in this section will allow the user to be able to identify the main components of the Honeywell TDC architecture, and be able to use the referencing function to find ‘entity’ or ‘point’ relationships on the control system. The information has been broken up into separate areas so the user can quickly and easily find the material they require.

The three sections under the Training content are intended to be utilised by personnel who wish to expand their knowledge on the Honeywell DCS. The TDC2000 section and the TDC3000 System Concepts and Architecture section are intended for personnel with a limited knowledge of the Honeywell system and wish to expand their knowledge further. The Referencing DCS Entities section assumes personnel have an intermediate level of understanding of the Honeywell system.

TDC2000 nodes – brief description

The content in this section is related to the older Honeywell control system. It provides an overview of the Data Hiway, the Hiway Traffic Director (HTD), the Basic and Extended Controllers (BC and EC respectively), the Process Interface Units (PIU’s), the Advanced Multifunction Controller (AMC), the Data Hiway Port (DHP), the Reserve Controller Director (RCD), and the terminations for the BC and ECs. The information is accompanied with images for ease of understanding.

System Concepts and Architecture

This content gives an overview of the system architecture that a Honeywell TDC3000 system utilises. It provides an overview of what a Distributed Control System (DCS) is, provides an example of a complete Honeywell DCS system, and then discusses the individual components of the system. It describes the Local Control Network (LCN) and its associated components, the Universal Control Network (UCN) and its components, the Data Hiway and its components, and the Plant Information Network and its associated components.

It also describes the system concepts (i.e. data types; input / output signals; point types; alarming; etc.), an overview of the standard native windows displays that are available (status displays; alarm summary; etc.), system tools that are available from the System Menu or the Organisational Summary Menu, and a description of the keyboard and Operator Station keys.

There is also a section that deals with the engineering functions available, and also details some information regarding Control Language (CL) programming. There is also a glossary of common terms and terminology, as well as a list of common parameters that are used.

Referencing DCS Entities

This content gives the user an understanding of how to reference entities or point relationships on the control system. The module gives an overview of what points and entities are, and why there is a need to reference them, various methods of referencing the entities, a brief overview of the ‘pushing’ and pulling’ concept with regards to data and a control system, and a detailed review of the Find Names function complete with some common searches, outputting the results, and examples of error messages that may be generated. There is also a glossary of common terms and terminology that the Honeywell system uses.