Opto-22 Optomux driver for Allen-Bradley

Does anyone have an ASCii driver written to access Opto-22 I/O system over RS-485 using an Allen-Bradley PLC / SLC / Logix controller?

No, but good luck with that.

We looked into it a couple of years ago (eight B2 racks connected by RS-422 serial), entertained the idea you have, then decided to purchase newer gear.

The regional AB sales guy that came out was unable to offer us a viable solution, so we went with some Sixnet RemoteTrak I/O and an iPM controller/gateway.

Opto22 offers E1/E2 brain boards for a reasonable price, which come with a serial pass-through feature, but you have to address the brainboards using TCP-Optomux. To make this, you need to run a standard Opto22 serial driver, with a UDP comm port redirector program running on top of it to put it on the LAN.

See our sister company produces dirt-cheap but good I/O boards that they designed to talk with Optomux protocol. I'd really like to use them with a PLC for cost savings, but the protocol is proving to be the stumbling block.

The search continues.

Look at the product suite from Western Reserve Controls (wrcakron.com). They make some Optomux-compatible gear that includes a 1746-BAS driver.

The optomux protocol is documented here:

http://www.opto22.com/site/documents/drilldown.aspx?aid=1941

It looks like rolling your own could get pretty hairy depending on what functionality you are looking for, but at least the protocol is documented well enough that you should be able to pull it off at the expense of your time.

B&B Electronics offers custom developed solutions for problems like yours according to this link:

http://www.bb-elec.com/tech_articles/converters_industrial_bus.asp

And finally, a thread from optoforums that pertains, but doesn't really offer any solutions:

http://www.opto22.com/forums/forums/675/ShowPost.aspx

In all my searching I didn't come up with too much...

Ken Roach said:

Look at the product suite from Western Reserve Controls (wrcakron.com). They make some Optomux-compatible gear that includes a 1746-BAS driver.

Click to expand...

Wow... good call Ken. Looking through their site, it looks like they also have an Optomux to Devicenet gateway that might be just the ticket:

http://www.wrcakron.com/devicenet_gateways.html