Using Modbus RTU in Labview 8.5 for Terminator Field I/O

[nhargrove]

We have on site Terminator: T1H-EBC100 Field I/O's and are trying to use Labview to control it.  We currently use Labview with our NI Fieldpoint modules and RIO's.  We have been trying to find a way to use LabView to control the Terminator Field I/O and it uses ModBus RTU for its protocol.  Does Labview 8.5 support this and any suggestions on getting the process started in using it.

[Jesse_D]

Hi nhargrove, 

We have two options for modbus communication. 

1) Use the DSC module: 

2) (unsupported) Use the free modbus library.

Getting started guides for modbus with the DSC module are on ni.com/support, or just google it. Addtionally the DSC module has a help chm that ships.

[nhargrove]

Would i use this in conjunction with Labview / Measurement Automation Explorer.  I guess my other big concern is how easy is the modules recognized.  I know with our FP I/O's they automatically register the modules.  With the DSC will that allow the same type of ease as far as recognizing the modules and writing or reading out to them.  If the the Terminator Field I/O is not supported by the DSC and i have to use the ModBus library, how hard is that to setup?

[Jesse_D]

Our modbus solutions don't work with max. 

Instead you send a message over TCP/IP or serial with a message for a particular node address. Only the node at that address will respond or act on the message. 

Modbus is much different that FP in this respect. The modbus specification doesn't require pre-discovery of every node. 

Additionally, because of this you should be able to send a message to the terminator even though it isn't discovered. You just will be need to configure the address correctly.