Siemens TIA Portal V13 - Networks - Enable / Disable

I have two PLC's networked together over an PN/IE_1 network. They both have separate IP addresses and are declared as such in the Device & Networks configuration page.

My problem is that I wish to make the second PLC an option which is configurable on an HMI (i.e. I need a method for disabling configured PLC's within a defined PN/IE_1 network).

I have attached a screen http://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=381043#shot from such a situation and I need to make PN/IE_1 192.168.100.17 optional?

Welcome to the forum!

Can you provide a little more information on what you hope to achieve here? Are you hoping to take one PLC or the other completely off the network? Stop one PLC from running code? Why do you wish to do this, and what are the circumstances?

On the face of it, what you're trying to do seems (to me at least) quite unusual, so if we understand what you hope to achieve with this setup, we may be able to throw a couple of ideas at you, instead of just lobbing half baked answers around

Oh okay, here's a couple of half baked answers for you!

- Put a bit in OB1 that must be true to call all of your subroutines. If you turn that bit on or off with the HMI, you PLC will not execute any of the code (well, it'll still be executing code, but only the bit that says "don't execute any of these FC's"). It won't disconnect the PLC from the network, but it'll stop it doing anything

- Power each PLC via the NC contact of an output relay from the other PLC. That way you can use either PLC to turn off the other. We're turning it off rather than just disconnecting it, so that may be an issue depending on what you want to do this for, but the beauty of this option is if your first PLC falls over and faults/shuts down then your output relay will automatically switch and your other PLC will turn on

- There is probably an ethernet device out there that can connect/disconnect something to the network based on a digital input, which you could then set up the same way as the previous point. If you wanted to get really DIY, you could just use a standard unmanaged switch at each PLC - if you cut the power to it's switch, it's not talking to anyone

Hi ASF,

This is the situation, PLC 192.168.100.16 is a machine with local indication. PLC 192.168.100.17 is a remote indication mimic which is an optional item for the customer. I need template software that can have or not have the optional PLC. All the PUT & GET commands are in optional PLC so the permanent PLC is not trying to send or collect any data. The issue is that the Device & Networks configuration page has declared the optional PLC as part of the network and without it the PLC Error LED flashes!

The only possible ways round this I can think of are:

1. Find a way to switch off PLC's declared in the Device & Networks configuration page?
2. Find a way to connect the two PLC's without declaring it under the Device & Networks configuration page in such a way that the PLC Error LED will not flash if comm's is lost
3. Find a way to switch off the PLC Error LED under certain circumstances?

You can use GET and PUT without having them in the same project, thus not beeing networked.

No (in short) PUT & GET are blocks that link to local and remote addresses within the specified PN/IE_1 network. Unless these are specified the program will not compile.

One way around this would be to get the two PLC's to communicate without using the PUT & GET commands. But I am not aware of how or if this could be done?

The Get / Put instructions can be used without the partner CPU in the project. You set the connection type to unspecified / unknown.

As Mike said:
Configure the add-on machine with a connection of
Type: S7 connection.
Partner: (unspecified)
Do not configure any connection on the main machine.

Make sure there's a life-bit active though. In conjunction with a bit in the main machine that says it needs the add-on machine, you can test comms in the main machine w/o configuring the connection.