OMRON 3G8F5-CLK01​ Controller Link Support Board – ISA Bus Interface for CV/C200H/CS1 PLC Networking

Technical Specifications

Main Features and Advantages

The 3G8F5-CLK01​ occupies a very specific but still actively needed niche: plants that keep a CV-series or C200HX-based line running and need the original PC-host gateway alive. Its strongest advantage is deterministic token-passing access. Unlike Ethernet’s CSMA/CD, Controller Link guarantees each node a time window, so when a SCADA PC running on the 3G8F5-CLK01​ polls 16 PLCs for CIO status, the cycle time is predictable—critical for synchronization-heavy lines like automotive weld or bottling rotary tables.Another advantage is FINS-native transparency. Because the 3G8F5-CLK01​ runs OMRON’s Controller Link BIOS and driver stack, a C-language application on the PC can read/write any PLC’s DM, CIO, HR, AR areas using the same FINS addressing that CX-Programmer uses. No protocol converter, no OPC wrapper, no extra licence—just the shipped 3.5″ floppy with support software, and the link is up.From a sparing perspective, the 3G8F5-CLK01​ is increasingly scarce. Many competitors re-label generic ISA serial cards as “Controller Link compatible,” but only the genuine 3G8F5-CLK01​ delivers the DMA handshake and 5 V/0.4 A current budget that OMRON’s CLK21-E/CLK11-E daughterboards expect. For maintenance teams managing 20+ year-old CV500/CV1000 lines, having a tested 3G8F5-CLK01​ on the shelf is often the difference between a 2-hour swap and a full network re-architecture.Physical footprint is also worth noting: 106.7 × 163 mm fits a standard full-length ISA slot, and 160 g means no slot reinforcement needed even in vibrating cabinet PCs. The 3G8F5-CLK01​ runs clean from 5 VDC drawn through the ISA edge connector, so no separate power pigtail is required—reducing failure points in cabinet wiring.

Application Field

The 3G8F5-CLK01​ is deployed wherever a legacy OMRON Controller Link network still carries production data and a PC host sits on that same network. A typical layout: 1–32 nodes total, mixing CVM1-CLK21 (CV PLCs), C200HW-CLK21 (C200HX/HG/HE), CS1W-CLK23 (CS1), and one PC node built on the 3G8F5-CLK01​ + CLK21-E wired daughtercard. That PC might run a DOS-based data collector written in Microsoft C, logging DM-area recipe data from every PLC into a local hard disk every shift.In automotive component lines, the 3G8F5-CLK01​ often bridges a CV1000 cell controller to a shop-floor MES that predates Ethernet/IP. The PC reads torque-check results from C200HX stations via FINS, batches them into ASCII records, and pushes to a file share—all without disturbing the PLC scan. In semiconductor back-end, where CV-series lines still run die-attach and wire-bond, the 3G8F5-CLK01​ gives the test-data server a direct 2 Mbps window into each cell’s CIO, avoiding the jitter of retrofitted Ethernet tunnels.Another real case is retrofit-spares: when the original 1998 industrial PC finally dies, the replacement motherboard still needs a free ISA slot for the 3G8F5-CLK01, because rewriting the entire cell-controller network to Ethernet/IP would cost 10× the board price. Keeping the 3G8F5-CLK01​ in stock lets plants defer that CAPEX by another 3–5 years.