How do I communciate EtherNet/IP with an Allen Bradley PLC in LabVIEW 8.0?

[JennS]

How do you suggest we communicate to an Allen Bradley CompactLogix L32E PLC via EtherNet/IP in LabVIEW 8.0?

Thanks,

Jennifer

[Rick_K]

Check out http://www.ni.com/opcservers for support for OPC servers and various PLCs. It does not appear that your particular PLC is listed there, however.

In order to communicate with this PLC you must get an OPC server that can communicate with it, and communicate using LabVIEW DSC or Lookout with that OPC server.

[preston_johnson]

also look for OPC servers at

www.opcfoundation.org

[99bobster99]

Hi Jennifer,

Did you ever find a solution to your question ? I am also trying to communicate between a CompactLogix PLC (L35E) and Laview 7.0 ??

Please let me know, thanks.

[Gryphon]

Hi All,

 this is probably hopeless late but what the heck.

 You would have to use RSLinx OEM version on a PC somewhere on the network and you could then get onto the PLC variables using OPC.  In labview 7.0 this could be done just by right clicking and browsing to the OPC server using a datasocket connection and it was great.  I have since tried to do this using 8.20 and while I could browse to the variables in the RSLinx OPC server, when I ran my VI, it looked like I was not able to do anything in spite of the fact that RSLinx listed my connections as current.  This may have to do with what I have seen in the newsgroups and comments on the PAC tutorials about needing the DSC module for OPC client functionality.  If this is the reason it did not work, it is a bit disappointing that a really useful feature has been pulled out and made not only chargeable as a module but also subject to a run time licensing cost. 

 If I am wrong on this I'd love to hear about it.

 BTW, the other possibly cheaper option is to get a gateway device and than talk modbus to the PLC.  This would be a pain in the proverbial if you ask me but beggars and choosers blah blah blah.

[Gryphon]

Argh!!!

I am sorry for posting something inaccurate.

 Datasockets on Labview 8.20 are alive and kicking.  This provides a great way of connecting to any OPC server in seconds.   In 8.20, right click the control or indicator and go to properties and then DataBinding.  In the databinding selection, choose datasocket.  You can then browse to the available OPC servers.

 If you have correctly configured an OPC topic in RSLinx, you should see this topic. If you haven't configured the 'Use Symbols' option in RSLinx and given it a path to a project, you won't be able to browse directly to a tag.  If you know the name of the tag and it's scope you can use this.  Screen shot below shows what you might end up with.

 There is one glitch and this has to do with the representation of a boolean tag which is configured as a decimal.  A straight boolean front panel object wo't display this properly.  You will need to use a numeric indicator to read this.

 One word of warning.  Datasockets are great for small numbers of tags but they can get slow when there are a lot of them.  I am not sure if this is because the read and writes are not optimised or grouped.   I suspect that this is what DSC does well.

Hope this helps someone (anyone!)

Peter

[sivamgr]

I've written a set of VIs to perform communication with Allen Bradely PLCs (MicroLogix, Compact Logix, Control Logix) via ethernet. These set of VIs use TCP  to read/write tags. No OPC Server, NI-DSC Module nor Automation Runtime is required.

Any Device that supports EtherNET/IP Protocol can ba accessed using these VIs.

I've posted the VIs in LAVA forum.

Please refer to the following topic at LAVA.

http://forums.lavag.org/Industrial-EtherNet-EtherNet-IP-t9041.html

[BlueCheese]

I know this is an old thread, but we have a new project available on NI Labs for communicating EtherNet/IP with PLCs including the CompactLogix series.

-Eric

[siva_usic]

Dear Friends,

I have the Allen-Bradley PLC, and I communicated through the Ethernet/IP Industrial communication addon module it is working good in Number of elements Upto 123, if I am enter the number of elements more than 123, i am not getting the data. My array size is 999. it is possible to read the 999 element with out using the loop.

Thanks advance.

 Sivaraj M.S.

[JEME]

Eric, I have Installed the addon for Ethernet IP and i try to read a tag in PLC, the characteristics of PLC are:Logix 5563Backplane 1756-A10/A04, 1756-EWEB/ACan you help me indicating if the program is wrong.attach Picture.

Regards

JEME