Talking to PLC from PC through CAN/CANOpen. Setting up the converter as a node

Hi, I have a Festo PLC (CPX-CEC-C1) that I want to talk to through the CANOpen port. I have a CAN-USB converter from Laciwel AB (canusb.com).

The PLC is acting as a master. Is it necessary to make the PLC recognize that the CAN-USB converter exists on the bus? Should I add it as a slave, and if, then how? By setting up an eds file, or?

If anyone here has any expertise on this subject it would (almost) literally save my life.


Oh, and thank you for the great forum here. Have been stalking for a while. It seems like a nice place for both learning and teaching about PLC's.

Hello,

We also use CANopen between our plcs and some distributed IO nodes. We can connect to it with a CAN-->USB converter that we buy from peak-system.

For us it is not necessary to tell the CAN master that we monitor the bus. It is only a sniffer device. The master do not have to do any configuring by either SDOs or PDOs, so no need for the master to know about it.

I don't know the equipment that you are using, so I can't say for sure, but I bet that you don't have to configure it either.

brg
Andreas

Thank you for the fast reply and sorry for the late response by me. I have not been at work for some days.

We use a Festo CPX-CEC-C1 PLC and CAN->USB from Laciwel (canusb.com)

I do not know if this is a valid example, but anyway:
If there is a program on the PLC which sets a boolean value B to true if another value A equals true. Is it possible to somehow write a CAN/CANOpen message in terminal that makes it trigger and do so? And how do I know how to write it? Hexadecimals?

Edit:
My goal is to control the PLC via sending CAN/CANOpen (is there a difference?) from the PC through the CAN-USB converter.

The PLC has been set up in CoDeSys and the normal functionalities are working. It doesn't know that I have a CAN-USB converter connected, but it seems like it doesn't matter according to orense.

So, let's say that the CAN-USB is working as a serial port. How can I figure out how to write the right CAN/CANOpen message so the PLC acts as I want it to?

I really hope I managed to clarify what my problem is. It has been bothering me for weeks now.

edit2: I was supposed to edit the other post, but it seems like I have posted a new post. Sorry

I gave up and used modbus instead. It works now! Thank you for the help anyway.