UCR 8 communicating with V570 via Modbus RTU

[VFU1076]

Hello everyone, 

I have a UCR 8 which is connected to a V570 via serial. 

I am basically setting up Modbus RTU into the router to create a gateway between my Ethernet communication and the serial PLC.

I want to be able to remote access my controller via Remote Operator. It works fine with a V700 as it gets an Ethernet port, but It's been difficult  to get it running on a V570. 

Have you guys done this before?

Cheers.

[Isakovic]

On 9/3/2021 at 10:51 PM, VFU1076 said:

It works fine with a V700 as it gets an Ethernet port, but It's been difficult  to get it running on a V570. 

You can also get an Ethernet Card for V570.

[VFU1076]

We have lots of customers with V570 screens and it would be expensive to add an ethernet card on every single machine to then get the router running.

 

[Simon]

Hi @VFU1076

I haven't done it but have discussed it with a customer.  The following youtube video explains the process well.  Just note that the video shows the connection using ethernet to the V570, and at that step you would set up the serial parameters instead.

• YouTube – router setup for Vision controller to UniCloud Connect Vision-Samba - Using Unitronics Router - YouTube

 

Hope this helps,

Simon

[VFU1076]

Hi Simon, 

Thanks for the input. I am not using the Unicloud service that Unitronics offers. Instead, I am using a third party DDNS service in order to be able to track what IP my controllers is getting assigned to it. 

There is a setup under services>rs232/485 into the router that needs to be configured in order to use the Remote Operator. I just don't know the exact settings needed. 

  My physical setup is : UCR>DB9-male to RJ11 male into Port 1 of the V570. 

In VisiLogic, I have a com port init in my power-up task to initialize the serial communication and same settings are being used into the router.

In Remote Operator, the ethernet call is my connection type where the router's IP is the target as well as its port. PLC name and everything seems to be correct, but I cannot access my controller.

Thank you.

[Simon]

OK, I understand.  I think it is this section of the user manual:  (p 110 of V1.B Oct 2020

[VFU1076]

Hi, 

After lot of digging and chatting with an Engineer at Unitronics, it turns out that PCO, the protocol that Unitronics software uses to connect to PLCs is different when communicating over Ethernet and Serial. Over Ethernet, PCOM adds 6 bytes of data to the beginning of the message. Because of this, connecting from VisiLogic(over Ethernet) to the router and then forwarding that to the PLC via serial, the PLC does not recognize the command. 

A Serial to Etherner gateway software is necessary to accomplish this or through the UniCloud. I am still running some tests here and will let you know how that goes. 

Let me know if anyone knows a FREE serial to ethernet gateway software as I only found paid ones so far.