Fondation Fieldbus reading

I 'll need to make basic and well known control project but the bad side is that i had to use FFB protocol to get information from some transmitters and activate some valve with FFB protocol...

I know FFB and Profibus PA comes from the same team but event if DP PA is almost plug and play with Siemens, i doubt FFB will work...

My first question is do you know about an easy to work with gateway that support FFB protocol to convert to any Siemens protocol in the same unit?

If not which good PLC brand i should use to figure it out...

Softing has a FF/Modbus gateway. I think I've read that some S7s now supports Modbus TCP. Look here.

Here is a link to another forum with the same issue.

K

:book:And here is a link to a manual for a DP-FF gateway from Siemens. They can probably sell you the gear also.

K

Hello Kalle;
The Siemens DP/FF Link is designed to work with PCS 7 applications, not with straight Step 7 projects.
Code blocks provided are in CFC...
From the introduction of the manual you suggested:
DP/FF Link applications
FOUNDATION Fieldbus devices in PCS 7

Hope this helps,
Daniel Chartier

Just a couple of ideas:

Get CFC for STEP7. Then maybe the standard blocks can be used in a regular STEP7 project.

Since Siemens DP/FF link really consist of a DP/serial link from Anybus, and a serial/FF link from Emrson, then try to contact anybus and Emerson directly for information on how to use the components.
You can then make your own S7 code rather than using the standard CFC blocks. I would be scared.

Softing has a gateway from Modbus TCP to FF.
http://www.softing.com/home/en/indu...bus/gateways/fg100-ff-m.php?navanchor=3010050
I am guessing that maybe they have sample code for S7 using the Modbus TCP library in S7.

It should also be possible to run "CFC-blocks" in STL/LAD/CSF. Can't think of an example that it should not work. ... but my brain memory has some parity errors...
K

i know we can purchase a modbus TCP driver for s7-300 plc and i can find a FFLD gateway to speak Modbus TCP so having 2 different translation level should work like the Jesper idea but....i would like to find somethnig easier

S7-200 also get a modbus rtu built in driver, is their a FFLD gateway to translate to a Modbus RTU instead of TCP ?

I also used the old communication method to communicate from a 343 ethernet module with a Shneider scada and got so many problems that i would stay away of this solutions....(The Siemens exemple code had errors in STL and i wasn't able to figure it out in the field during commissioning...... )

You cannot be serious.
If you have a customer who has specced FF, then I dont think he will be exactly pleased if you try to solve the task with an S7-200. He must be thinking of something with a bit of oomph and scalability.
And S7-200 is fast becoming obsolete, while the replacement S7-1200 isnt 100% up to speed.

What do you mean by "the old communiction method" ?

From your original post: "If not which good PLC brand i should use to figure it out...". There is the 1757-FFLD which I believe links ControlLogix (and maybe CompactLogix) to FF.

I briefly scanned www.fieldbus.org and only Rockwell (A-B) and Yokogawa appeared to have FF PLCs. Other listings seem to be DCS or field instruments or I/S components. But I didn't look too deeply.

Jesper, I agree with you that a 300 is way better and i will for sure use it because to have spare possibility....I just learn this morning that i also need to make it rendondant so 2 x 300 won't be too much in this case.....
But the plc job is to open and close somes valves to keep a big motor inside is amperage range so in this kind of project i use about 20% of a 200 when i have standard 4-20mA signal to control....Their is some potentiel for sequencial logic in a small 200 to keep in mind....
And in this case the salesman already sold the project without bothering for FFLD like if it was a standard so budjet is limited...But it will cost what it need...

We already did a project with compactlogix and an AB fieldbus gateway 1757-FFLD isn't an i/o module it's realy a programmable gateway that translate FFLD to AB comm and because of a malfunctionning valve we had a lot of problems figuring it out....
I didn't know this forum at this time and our support from Rockwell is very limited because we prefer Siemens....

By the old way to do a modbus TCP...I mean i did a modbus TCP comm with a lot of SCL line copied from a Siemens FAQ with some error that we had to solve by ourself without much support...now i heard about a new package from our Siemens engeneer that suppose to make TCP being plug and play....but still not tried it...

I dont know how much that 1757-FFLD cost, but since you already have experience with it, I know what I would chose. You can probably save a bit on engineering time compared to developing a new solution.

The part about the sales guy not knowing what he is selling, I know all too well.

But I have learned that it is futile to cut corners to try and meet an impossible budget.