Twincat - connecting remotely, questions.

Hi,

I have a new role at my company to support some Twincat PLCs (Older CX units). I'm not very experienced with TwinCat but I'm trying to learn a few things on my own before the line calls start coming . One thing I'd like is the ability to connect from my office to the machine on the floor and view IO/PLC code remotely. I've done the following:

1. VNC in to the CX, run ipconfig, note the IP address.
2. On my desktop PC open TwinCat system mgr, "Add Route" by searching the CX's IP.

So I have the IPs routed to my desktop. My question is, is it possible from here to view the program that is loaded in to the CX? Or do I have to download the code first and then connect to the CX's IP?

Ideally I'd like to download the program from the CX's RAM so I have the most current code, then go online with that from my desktop, hoping this is possible...

Downloading is not possible, as the program is compiled.
You must have the original, without anything chnaged to see the program, so make lots of backups and control the version you are running.
See also www.3s-software.com they haver a forum about codesys

shooter said:

Downloading is not possible, as the program is compiled.
You must have the original, without anything chnaged to see the program, so make lots of backups and control the version you are running.
See also www.3s-software.com they haver a forum about codesys

Click to expand...

Thank you for the information, I'd like to ask one more question. I added a machine route to my desktop PC and connected to it via system manager:



I then went to the CX unit and saved the project to the network. I opened the project on my desktop and tried to connect but get this error:



If I saved the current project from the CX and tried to connect from the desktop shouldn't why is it asking if I want to "load changes"? Thank you.

the program you have on the computer is different from the program in the PLC, So it asks to overwrite the PLC software. This can be a version change or a program change you made.
Be sure you have the correct file where the PLC is working with, there is no easy way to find this, in version 3 it is possible, but in version 2.3 it is not.

You can possibly see this request for online changes if the build of TwinCAT you are using is different from the build used for the program currently in the controller. If you are 100% sure you have the current code matching what is in the controller, then it is OK to go ahead and download the changes because it is only a rebuild to the signature created by the TwinCAT build you are using.

A very good practice when using CXs controllers is to download the source to the controller everytime a change is made. That will allow you to retreive the source from the controller and go online even if you do not have the original file. This can be done by going to File->Open and clicking the PLC button.

I also recommend going to Project->Options->Source Download, and setting the timing to Implicit on Create Boot Project. Whenever you make program changes and download the boot project, it will automatically send the source code along with it to ensure they always match.