Problems setting up an Ethernet/IP Gateway

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gco
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Problems setting up an Ethernet/IP Gateway

Post by gco »

We have a simple setup that is proving difficult to finalise.
We have a RevPI Connect and an Ethernet/IP gateway connected via a PiBridge that we are hoping to include in a Rockwell PLC system.

The RevPI is polling data from a ModbusTCP slave and we can verify the values in the Input_Word0 to Input_Word1 via SSH.
How do we set up the EIP module so that we can read the Input_Words and Output_Words?

We cannot find any manuals to help with this setup other than a basic document that mentions various CIP data positions. We have installed the EDS file and created an IO module in a Rockwell CompactLogix.
When I connect to the EIP using a Rockwell PLC all of the input and output words are zero. How do we make sure that the process data seen in the RevPI is copied to the EIP module input and output tables? Isnt the PiBridge used to automatically copy the process data to the EIP data tables? What is the offset used for? How do we check what values are being stored in the EIP module registers?
I have attached a screenshot from PiCtory
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nicolaiB
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Re: Problems setting up an Ethernet/IP Gateway

Post by nicolaiB »

Hi gco,

the gateway is an independant device in the process image like any other IO module. Therefore the data is not automatically synchronized. For testing you can read/write the gateways data via piTest (same as with the virtual modbus master). The IO synchronization has to be implemented in custom software (for example in Python with the library revpimodio2).

Nicolai
gco
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Re: Problems setting up an Ethernet/IP Gateway

Post by gco »

Can we use node-red to pick up data from the RevPI and pass it to the Ethernet/IP module?
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nicolaiB
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Re: Problems setting up an Ethernet/IP Gateway

Post by nicolaiB »

Never tried it with NodeRed, but should be possible. It might be neccesarry to do some type conversion in NodeRed (gateway uses bytes, virtual Modbus master uses words).

Nicolai
gco
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Re: Problems setting up an Ethernet/IP Gateway

Post by gco »

Could you let me know how the data from the Ethernet/IP module is exposed to the RevPI Connect and how we can write data to the Ethernet/IP input words from the RevPI?
We are reading data via ModbusTCP using the RevPI and have verified that we are reading this data correctly using piTest. But how do we then write that data to the Ethernet/IP card IO table?
What we are trying to achieve is very simple.
We have the Ethernet/IP module communicating with a Rockwell CompactLogix and can see the data written to the EIP card from that PLC? We now need to find out how we copy data from the RevPI to the EIP card.

Are there any application examples using the Ethernet/IP card that we could see?
Do you have examples for other gateways that we could use to see how data is exchanged between gateways and the RevPI unit?
Could we use Logi.CAD? Why can't we download Logi.CAD from your website?
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nicolaiB
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Re: Problems setting up an Ethernet/IP Gateway

Post by nicolaiB »

gco wrote: 10 Mar 2022, 13:11 Could you let me know how the data from the Ethernet/IP module is exposed to the RevPI Connect and how we can write data to the Ethernet/IP input words from the RevPI?
It's exposed the same way as the data of the virtual modbus module and can be accessed via piControl (e.g. piTest, direct access of /dev/piControl0 or libraries like revpimodio2).
gco wrote: 10 Mar 2022, 13:11 We are reading data via ModbusTCP using the RevPI and have verified that we are reading this data correctly using piTest. But how do we then write that data to the Ethernet/IP card IO table?
What we are trying to achieve is very simple.
We have the Ethernet/IP module communicating with a Rockwell CompactLogix and can see the data written to the EIP card from that PLC? We now need to find out how we copy data from the RevPI to the EIP card.
As I said above you will have to write a custom application for this whichs copies the data from one module to the other. Unfortunately there is no ready to use application, yet.
gco wrote: 10 Mar 2022, 13:11 Are there any application examples using the Ethernet/IP card that we could see?
Do you have examples for other gateways that we could use to see how data is exchanged between gateways and the RevPI unit?
A simple example could look like this: https://gist.github.com/nbuchwitz/c1700 ... 09dd907def

For more details please have a look at the revpimodio2 documentation: https://revpimodio.org/en/homepage/

Nicolai
gco
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Re: Problems setting up an Ethernet/IP Gateway

Post by gco »

I do not think I am explaining my self properly.

We know that we will need to use custom data to pass data to and from the gateway but we cannot find how the data is addressed.

For example, to read the ReviPI Input word1 we could use......... 'piTest -r Input_Word_1' etc
In the example shown in the link you provided, to write to the gateway ..........Gateway_Output_Word_1 but when we tried 'piTest -r Gateway_Input_Word_1' the IO address was not known.
Using piTest just as an example of how to address gateway IO , what should the command be read Input_Word_1 from the gateway?
Do we have to use the hardware address, eg '31' in our case?

I have attached the result of piTest -d Image
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nicolaiB
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Re: Problems setting up an Ethernet/IP Gateway

Post by nicolaiB »

Just use the variable name you have configured in Pictory (default should be something like Input_1 )

Nicolai
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