How do I connect a S7300 PLC to cRIO over TCP/IP on Ethernet?

[Arshad]

I have a cRIO 9004 module that is used to acquire data.  I need to connect a Siemens S7300 PLC to this unit to extract the data (as well as pass data back to the cRIO).  The cRIO is said to support TCP/IP over Ethernet.  The PLC has an Ethernet module also.  How do I get the two devices to communicate? I understand there is some colaroration between NI and Siemens that covers this area.

[.avi file]

Greetings:
   Thanks for the inquiry. The method to communicate between the ethernet modules is listed in steps below.

1) Use a windows computer having an OPC server.

2) Use LabVIEW to communicate with the OPC server using Data socket
http://zone.ni.com/devzone/conceptd.nsf/webmain/df8c0a4ba2e2b22a86256a3700592bea

3) Connect from the cRIO through data socket to the OPC

Hope this helps
Thanks much
Avi Harjani

[Arshad]

Thanks Avi

You did point me in a new direction here. Instead of using another PC as the gateway, the Siemens PLC is an OPC Server so I will try the option of connecting directly to the PLC's OPC Server using datasockets from the cRIO unit.  cRIO would then be an OPC client that updates the information sitting in the server.  No need for the computer.

Regards, Arshad

[lakshu]

Dear Arshad,

Thanks for your inputs. i am currently trying to do a similar communication with S7 300 and cRIO. Currently I am succesfull in establishing the communication with the PLC and my laptop. But the problem is that i am not able to do a high speed udpate to the PLC. I need to update the PLC registers for every 100ms. But using my laptop I am able to update only at every 1sec.

I need to do know whether using the cRIO I will be able to obtain a PLC communication and update its registers for every 100ms. Please let me know whether you where able to estabilsh the communication in your application and also please let me know your feedbacks about the system perfomance. I heard that OPC functions cannot be used in cRIO (RTOS). please let me know your feedbacks.

Regards,

Lakshman