Ethernet/IP

[robmeier]

Hi Unitronics Team,

 

I'm an Electrical Engineer working in a production environment. When we build a new machine, we have been using Red Lion screens for our smaller HMI applications. We were wanting to step away from just having a dumb, expensive HMI and move to a more aggressive HMI.

 

Currently, most of our operator stations have one main 15" HMI. We generally have 3 smaller displays that will display different information about the machine that the operators will need to have displayed at all times. We were hoping that the Unitronics HMI/PLC combo would be something we could migrate to. We started with a little project using a Samba to see what these devices were capable of. I was very impressed with the ease of use and the size of the device. We had a little project that needed to be able to handle a few inputs, a few outputs and display some information based on information from the inputs. The project worked like a charm. However, we use Allen Bradley PLCs on all of our machines, so we are currently not able to communicate. We rely heavily on Ethernat/IP. I was told by a supplier that you guys may have this feature in the future. Do you guys have a time frame for this?

 

Also, I would have liked to have seen the Web Server interface on the Samba.

 

Thanks,

Rob Meier

[Henny]

Hi Unitronics Team,

 

I'm an Electrical Engineer working in a production environment. When we build a new machine, we have been using Red Lion screens for our smaller HMI applications. We were wanting to step away from just having a dumb, expensive HMI and move to a more aggressive HMI.

 

Currently, most of our operator stations have one main 15" HMI. We generally have 3 smaller displays that will display different information about the machine that the operators will need to have displayed at all times. We were hoping that the Unitronics HMI/PLC combo would be something we could migrate to. We started with a little project using a Samba to see what these devices were capable of. I was very impressed with the ease of use and the size of the device. We had a little project that needed to be able to handle a few inputs, a few outputs and display some information based on information from the inputs. The project worked like a charm. However, we use Allen Bradley PLCs on all of our machines, so we are currently not able to communicate. We rely heavily on Ethernat/IP. I was told by a supplier that you guys may have this feature in the future. Do you guys have a time frame for this?

 

Also, I would have liked to have seen the Web Server interface on the Samba.

 

Thanks,

Rob Meier

Hello Rob

 

In the meantime you could also use a protocol gateway to set up communication between Allen Bradly and Unitronics plcs.

Here are some links.

 

http://www.prosoft-technology.com/Products/Gateways

Here you can select the ethernet/ip protocol one one side and modbus master slave at the other site.

 

and here is another one

http://www.moxa.com/product/MGate_5105-MB-EIP_Series.htm

 

The disadvantage of this solution is that extra hardware is needed to set up communicaton but it can work wel if propperly configured.

 

I have succesfully set up communication between a CTI plc (used to be Texas Instruments 555 plc) and Unitronics V570 using a agilicom profibus <=>modbus rtu gateway.

 

Kind regards

 

Henny

[Eyal Koren]

Hi Rob,

First of all, thank you for using Unitronics products. I am glad that you had a positive experience working with the new Samba PLC. I can assure you that our new line of PLC's, the Unistream, will provide you an amazing user experience for a very powerful PLC.

 

Regarding Ethernet/IP - currently our R&D department are working on implementing this protocol in the Unistream series. We currently don't have a time frame for the release date.

 

Another thing - the Samba does not feature Web Server capabilities. You can find these in the advanced Vision series.

[Henny]

Hello Eyal

Is profinet Also on the roadmap for Unistream controllers?

Could be intresting for the European market.

Regards

Henny

[Flex727]

However, we use Allen Bradley PLCs on all of our machines, so we are currently not able to communicate. We rely heavily on Ethernat/IP.

 I regularly use V570s and V1210s that must communicate with each other and customer SCADA systems and customer PLCs that are not Unitronics. I typically use MODBUS IP over Ethernet and it works very well.

[jweav2223]

You can use a Protocol Gateway (Red Lion and others) to link the Unitronics (TCP/IP) and Allen Bradley (Ethernet/IP) devices until their implementation is completed. For not too much more you can jump to the V350 and get the Web Server, SD Storage and I/O Expansion capability if that is the screen size you're interested in.

[Eyal Koren]

Hello Eyal

Is profinet Also on the roadmap for Unistream controllers?

Could be intresting for the European market.

Regards

Henny

Henny,

 

Currently, Profinet is not on Unistream road map. However, we never say never and if you have potential projects that requires the use of Profinet protocol we'll be happy to hear more.