Horner PLC Networking

I'm trying to network two horner plc's together. I have both XE102's modded with the ethernet cards already. Using Cscape what are the steps I need to go through to connect the PLC's together so that the Fkeys on one will affect the programming in the other??

When I open the communication port should I use the TCP protocol or the Modbus RTU protocol to network my PLC's so that I can share %QG and %QI bits across the network?

-Cody

I'd suggest the ethernet, as it will be much faster. We've used the Horners to pass data and to allow programming all units from a single location, but not to have function keys directly pass through. I suspect you will have to have the function key in the master set a bit that is passed.

Have you contacted Horner? I've fiund their tech support to be pretty good.

chall said:

I'm trying to network two horner plc's together. I have both XE102's modded with the ethernet cards already. Using Cscape what are the steps I need to go through to connect the PLC's together so that the Fkeys on one will affect the programming in the other??

Click to expand...

I would suggest using the MJ1-MJ2 port and the build in Horner CAN set up.
Define "Global %x, where x is I,Q,AI,AQ and so on) on both PLC's.
Then define the Global points as a read or write for each PLC.
Minimum setup time, you get to use actual Horner registers (tags) and a proven comms network.
There's a section under the help menu that explains the usage and set up of "Global" variables, registers and such.

The Ethernet add-on (XEC I believe)is primarily used as a programming port.
The adders do not provide real ethernet functionality.
If you buy a unit with the build-in ethernet (such as an XE102e) then it's a different story.

The other option is to use the CsCAN port of each unit.
You network the 2 of them and exchange data.
Even less time consuming/painful setup.