Ethernet is no longer an option for Industrial Devices – ETHERNET IS A REQUIREMENT. Ethernet is the fastest growing segment of Industrial Networking for one reason – The Market (Your Customers) Loves Ethernet. And the most important Industrial Ethernet protocol is EtherNet/IP™. EtherNet/IP is the Ethernet solution used in the Rockwell Automation architecture and the one GM is requiring for Robots, Welders and other automation devices.
Even though Ethernet is the current standard for industrial communications, there is still an awful lot of Modbus RTU devices out there. There is a ton of perfectly good scales, flow meters, drives and lots of other things that use Modbus RTU messaging. This is equipment that you’ve probably used for a long time and you’re comfortable with. You know how to set it up, how to make it work and you know that it’s reliable. Plus, you can probably get it a really good price since it doesn’t have all the fancy features of the new models.
The problem is that you still have to get this stuff into your PLC over an EtherNet/IP network. And Modbus RTU masters that plug into PLC racks are pretty darn expensive and usually pretty hard to setup. So, you’ve probably bit the bullet, invested a thousand or more, waded through a complex manual and spent a few hours figuring out how to implement it. You’ve probably thought, “Shouldn’t this be easier?”
Well, that’s what our device does. It makes moving Modbus register data to an EtherNet/IP Client simple. It quickly and easily moves the registers you need from those scales, drives and other RTU devices to EtherNet/IP Clients like ControlLogix without all the hassle. Here’s how you do it:
- Start the web server and configure your first Modbus device. Enter its Modbus RTU Address and a set of registers to read and a set of registers to write. You’ll have to tell it the number of registers and their starting address.
- Repeat this for every Modbus RTU device you have.
- If you have a second or third set of registers you need from one of your devices, enter your device again and again, each time specifying a different set of registers.
When you get done, the device starts reading all the registers you specified and appending all the data together. The entire group of registers then becomes the network input to your EtherNet/IP Client. For output data, the reverse happens. Data from the EtherNet/IP Client is written out to your Modbus devices using the list of write registers you specified in the order you specified.
It’s Easy! So Easy that we will let you try it for 45 days with a no questions asked return guarantee. You don’t like it, you don’t like the documentation, we’ll happily take it back. |
