ABB robot talking on deviceNet

Anyone had experience talking to a ABB robot with devicenet option on a PLC. Question is, could one talk to multiple robots(slaves) with PLC(master) using devicenet.

Why not?

rigicon said:

Anyone had experience talking to a ABB robot with devicenet option on a PLC. Question is, could one talk to multiple robots(slaves) with PLC(master) using devicenet.

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Check with your ABB rep, but it shouldn't be a problem. If they supply a DNet board, they should also supply an EDS file and the PLC doesn't know it's a robot, it just sends/receives data the same as any other device. There is probably some custom software that has to be installed on the robot's controller or control PC, but ABB should have that too.

We just did this with a Staubli robot last summer. They have a board in their chassis (or maybe their PC, it was easy enough that I can't even remember!) and an Applicom driver in the PC that runs the robot. The whole thing set up easily and has been running for nearly a year now with no fuss.

I went to ABB today and indeed they told me DeviceNet is their norm although they can do profibus canbus etc. They also showed me how to configure the robot to talk via deviceNet with the generic driver (EDS) or I could use the specific PLC EDS.
The robot is to be the slave only prob is I forgot to ask if multiple robots could be connected but I agree with TurpoUrpo Why Not?
Is it then just a matter for the PLC to talk to the specific node number? I will have 5 robots talking to the PLC which I personally think shouln't be a problem.
I suppose I am just asking the question to reassure myself.
Thanks for your comments Paul T much appreciated.

I assume (you do not state the robot controller type) that you will be using an IRC5 controller? For this you will need to order option 709-XX. We usually order a two channel DNET card, so we get a 709-2 option.

We set up comms over DNet from Rockwell PLC's to IRC5 on almost all our robot projects. Setup is straight forward (after you can obtain an eds file from ABB for the DSQ dnet card that is). Use the (in our case AB 1756-DNB) Device Net scanner as the master and use the IRC5 controller as the slave device. Then just map away. Depending on number of bytes/robots and interscan delay settings may impact speed response for time critical handshaking requirements.

The robot side of setting up the unit type and then using the EIO file to set up your 'tags' from the DeviceNet scanner can be interesting if you haven't done it before.

As a side note, the robot setup is the same for both DNET and say EthernetIP. You can order a DSQC 669 card for an ethernetIP option instead of DNET if desired. The only robot difference will be the unit type you have to setup.

Yes definitely IRC5 new. Interesting about the EthernetIP but sounds too complicated for me/ scared I mean would the PLC & robots be on their own network.
I think I'll stick to deviceNet(to late in the game) Actually bit annoyed with ABB as they didn't mention the ethernetIP option and now the quote has to be in tomorrow morning first thing. Actual control will only be start/stop at end of cycle and how many have you made nothingtoo time critical. The robots are pick & place to injection moulding machines.
Never setup DeviceNet from robot to a PLC but did set up a DeviceNet analog module to a ABB so yes its going to be interesting.

Yes, you can set up multiple ABB robots on devicenet. I Have done this plenty of times. Just need to set node address in Robot studio software

rigicon said:

Yes definitely IRC5 new. Interesting about the EthernetIP but sounds too complicated for me/ scared I mean would the PLC & robots be on their own network.
I think I'll stick to deviceNet(to late in the game) Actually bit annoyed with ABB as they didn't mention the ethernetIP option and now the quote has to be in tomorrow morning first thing. Actual control will only be start/stop at end of cycle and how many have you made nothingtoo time critical. The robots are pick & place to injection moulding machines.
Never setup DeviceNet from robot to a PLC but did set up a DeviceNet analog module to a ABB so yes its going to be interesting.

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Too bad it's late in the game for you. I've used ABB Robots on Ethernet with ControlLogix and it worked great.

jcr Too bad it's late in the game for you. I've used ABB Robots on Ethernet with ControlLogix and it worked great.

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We have the order now so as long as the system works,we can change our minds I am thinking of MODBUS TCP/IP over ethernet as it looks like we are going to use Citect SCADA.

I'd check into the Ethernet option. DNet is ok, but Ethernet can probably map directly into the controller memory without the network configuration that DNet requires. Also, DNet means that you have one more set of software to maintain, and DNet devices are firmware dependent which can be a problem in the future.

True, some of this may apply to the ENet solution too. But, overall the ENet solutions I've seen in the last few years have been easier to set up and maintain than DeviceNet. The only reason we went with DNet on our project was that Staubli did not offer an AB-compatible Ethernet at the time (for SLC and Logix500, anyway). And, we were retrofitting an existing cell that had already been done using DNet ten years ago... so adding another DNet node was not a big deal.

Now it has been decided 5 ABB IRC5 robots with deviceNet talking to a PLC which has Ethernet and DeviceNet on board and Remote DeviceNet IO connect to the PLC. The robots can access there Remote IO.and the HMI can access the PLC.
ABB UK could support DeviceNet better than EtherNetIP so thats the decision.

Now the big question what PLC? tending towards AB for the PLC and Wago for the IO. Any comments will be appreciated Thanks.

ABB UK could support DeviceNet better so thats the decision.

ABB plc?

rigicon said:

Now it has been decided 5 ABB IRC5 robots with deviceNet talking to a PLC which has Ethernet and DeviceNet on board and Remote DeviceNet IO connect to the PLC. The robots can access there Remote IO.and the HMI can access the PLC.
ABB UK could support DeviceNet better than EtherNetIP so thats the decision.

Now the big question what PLC? tending towards AB for the PLC and Wago for the IO. Any comments will be appreciated Thanks.

ABB UK could support DeviceNet better so thats the decision.

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Well, since DeviceNet the five robots are going to map into five separate memory areas in the PLC. Actually, ten separate memory areas since the reads and writes will be treated as OUT and IN by the PLC.

The rest of your IO will also map into memory via DeviceNet. How much IO are we talking about? DNET does have limits on what can be carried. The DeviceNet scanner for an AB SLC will only do... I want to say, 314 words or something like that. For old-style IO systems that's fine, but if you need a lot of data exchange between the controller and the robots it fills up fast. OTOH, in the cell we did, we have a six axis robot and we only used something like 15 words back and forth to command it - index it, really, from position to position around the cell.

As far as other IO modules, I've been using Turck BL20 for the last few years. BL20 need to go into an enclosure, but they're cheap (relatively) and they work well. Turck's BL67 is the same thing in a brick that can be mounted externally to a machine, but they cost a ton because of that. The only issue I have with Turck is that they've changed the firmware four times in the last four years, and every time they do those new modules won't work on the "old" machine because of it. Aside from that, they're fine.

Wago is probably just as good; I just have a relationship with the local distributor for Turck and we get decent pricing and support, so we went with it. Since we're an end user, albeit one who builds their own machines, I don't buy a lot relative to an integrator or OEM, so the vendors who will still give us an integrator discount get our business.

Big thing on the PLC is:

- How many DeviceNet nodes, and how many words?
- How complex is the system? Lots of logic, or only middling?
- What have you programmed before that will handle DeviceNet?

If you've used another controller that has DeviceNet capability, I'd look there first. Programming is the lion's share of the cost; you can get your vendor to help set up the DNet if need be. Just make sure you've thought about your network first so that you only have to do it once.


Edit - just saw the other thread, LOL!

So what's going to the the master, the PLC or the robot? My experience has all been using the PLC as a master to run the cell, and the robot being triggered by the PLC when needed. The robot's own software then executes whatever the PLC has requested.

Our robot also has grippers; the robot runs them itself (when necessary) as part of a "Dropoff" or "Pickup." The PLC simply requests Pickup, say; the robot then executes that action. The robot is also wired with a laser sensor to locate the tooling, as well as the gripper solenoids and limit switches to run the grippers. The robot acks the original request, then sets a Done flag to the PLC when done.

DeviceNet doesn't allow shared memory AFIK. The Master will poll the slaves, or, look for COS from the slaves is how I do it. So, the Master has all the info from each slave device. You can then write logic in the Master (PLC for me) to "share" things, but you're using up more DeviceNet words to do it, as it's still just IN and OUT to the network.

ABB plc?

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TurpoUrpo I take it you mean use a ABB PLC on a ABB Robot - Ummm nice one - never programmed ABB PLC's I'll try get some more info from ABB.

Paul T

The idea from ABB is 5 robots with single port devicenet talking to a Master PLC (?) This PLC will ineffect be the DeviceNet scanner.
The IO will be 32 in 32 out per robot 1 to 4 the 5th will have 48in 48out. There will be 5 remote IO one per robot plus an additional 3 for some conveyor control no more than 32 IO per conveyor node as below.
Robot 1 = 32I + 32O = Node 1
Robot 2 = 32I + 32O = Node 2
Robot 3 = 32I + 32O = Node 3
Robot 4 = 32I + 32O = Node 4
Robot 5 = 48I + 48O = Node 5
Conveyor 1 = 16I + 16O = Node 6
Conveyor 2 = 16I + 16O = Node 7
Conveyor 3 = 16I + 16O = Node 8

Total = 224I + 224O = 448 Physical

I think the Physical IO count is not that much there will be Virtual IO but only 2 words per robot.

The PLC must have a ethernet port be it EthernetIP, Modbus TCP/IP etc to talk to a HMI come Scada setup.
The PLC must be pretty powerful I know that but which one ?

I'm assuming all your IO so far is discrete? Eight nodes and 500 points is not a problem. You'll probably want some integer words to the robots, too, but you have plenty left.

What HMI are you planning to use? And as far as PLCs, which ones have you programmed before?

Like I said, I think that the logic will be a lot more expensive than the hardware. Nearly any PLC is going to support DeviceNet. So which PLC's do you have experience with?