Can i connect a PLC 5/15 with KE/KF2 card to the network and communicate using RSLogix5 software for programming/monitoring?
You can use with the KF2 (or KF3 for other PLC with DH485), but I am not sure about the KE because it has psudeo RS-423 support. The only user I’ve heard of who tried the KE did not succeed but I am not sure they had the KE setup correctly.
Any Digi products (even Digi One SP or IA) running under RealPort will work with RSLinx. This is the Digi technology that creates a “virtual serial port” on your Windows computer linked to a remote port by Ethernet. RSLinx (and thus RSLogix) is configured for “DF1 on RS-232 port”. Just be aware that older RSLinx is not happy when comm ports come and go, so you may need to restart RSLinx if you power off the Digi device after RSLinx has started polling thru it.
With the Digi One IAP you’d setup an explicit address in the “Ethernet Driver” station table for RSLinx, which will use CSPv4 (what Digi calls AB/Ethernet) to access the Digi One IAP. Because the Digi One IAP just blindly maps the PCCC messages from CSPv4 to DF1, all reads and writes need to be limited to the DF1 max-size of 118 to 122 word range. From what I hear RSLinx doesn’t have a problem with this, but some 3rd party applications (like OPC servers) assume larger messages in the 500 word range work.
I will try in a few days, but i am wondering if anybody has actually used the IAP for communicating to a PLC for programming purposes. I will not use RealPort though.
I know that many people use the Digi One IAP plus the DataLink Tech DH485 or DH+ (DL3xxx lines - http://www.protocolconverter.com ) gateway for programming of PLC3 and PLC5. These are KF2 competitors with the same DF1 link involved. In fact, the Digi+DL3500 performs much better than their own Enet-to-DH+ because of a memory limitation in how they did the Ethernet portion.
My problem is I don’t have a $12,000 budget to buy a used PLC5+RSLogix5 to do any testing on PLC5 or DH+. So i am also interested in hearing what works with PLC5.
I will let you know as soon as i get my installation and configuration done. I will work on this project next week.
Actually, we see now that the SIPEX RS-232 chip we use claims to support +/- 15v (required by the EIA-232 standard), yet it seems to overheat at anything over 12v. If the KE puts out a stonger EIA-232 signal than 12v (15v is legal), then I’m not sure how well it will work with the DOIAP.
We’re in the process of redoing the IAP hardware because some parts are hard to buy - we’ll also switch to a better EIA-232 chip.
Message was edited by: lynnl
I am so sorry that i never got back to the forum. I finished my application about 3 weeks ago. You were right, the KE did not work, but i did not have a fair time to find out why, but i noticed that when plugging it to the IAP all the LED’s lit-up and the IAP hung-up. Was that do the higher voltage of the serial connection? May be, i wish sometime i will have time to find out. The Digi One IAP just worked wonderfully with the KF2 and directly to PLC com port. I will not hesitate to use it in the future when need arises in other applications.