Beckhoff BK8100 programing in Visual Basic 6.0

Hello All,

I am trying to program Beckhoff BK8100 in Visual Basic 6.0but its just getting on my nerves. I have to program KL2408 (8 x Digital Output) and KL4002 (2 x Analog Output) along with this Bus Coupler for my Project. Can anyone tell me how I can interface and Program Beckhoff BK8100 Bus Coupler through serial port using Visual Basic. Thanks

http://www.beckhoff.com/english.asp?download/supplement_com.htm?id=1910

You cannot program BK8100, because is is a 'bus coupler', not a 'bus controller'. In other words, it does not have facilities to run its own program, it can only communicate the state of its inputs to a higher-level controller and update its outputs based on the higer-level controller requests.

It looks like you are trying to program a PC (using VB6) to control a BK8100. For that you would need to use 'TwinCAT ADS Communication Library' which can be downloaded from the link above. ADS is a communication protocol all Beckhoff units support.

When you install the library, you will get a number of COM and .NET DLLs to work with; for VB6 apps there is also an OCX component. Read the help files that come with the package; getting a PC to talk to a Beckhoff unit is not that hard although it would require some learning.

The BK8100 uses a very simple protocol. You send it a short header and the output values, then it returns the input values. I have written a .NET class for it and will be glad to send it to you if you private message me an email address. You may be able to convert it to VB6.