Messaging-SLC 500 to/from CompactLogix ?

Good Morning ,

We are getting ready to do a small project with a Cognex Vision System.
We have a SLC 500 , controlling the operation , but since we need to eventually convert to the Logix Platform , I would like to take advantage at this time to begin converting to a CompactLogix L33 , and use that to talk with the Cognex camera . I would like to take the information from the old system ( SLC 500 ) , and give it to new CompactLogix . Then I would begin to slowly get rid of the SLC 500 when funds and time is available .

My question is , I guess you can Read and Write , thru messaging with a SLC 500 To and From a CompactLogix ?

Thanks so much ,

Yes, probably.

The SLC-5/05 will need to be new enough to have "dual stack" firmware that supports CIP as well as the old PCCC/CSPv4 proprietary A-B Ethernet protocol. That should include any SLC-5/05 built in the past 20 years, but we can check your firmware version to be sure. Any SLC-5/05 with the "Series C" Ethernet daughtercard that is labeled "10/100" on the front will have the dual-stack firmware.

If your SLC-5/05 appears in the EtherNet/IP driver, not just in the Ethernet Devices driver, then it definitely has CIP and CSPv4.

If your CompactLogix is initiating the messages, then you don't have to do anything to set up SLC Data Table mapping; the MSG instruction will let you put in an SLC-style Data Table address directly.

I just finished working on a machine with a similar architecture; we installed a ControlLogix to handle some modern servos over Ethernet, and then just read our setpoints from the SLC-5/05 with MSG instructions.

If it's not an SLC-5/05, then the communications architecture will be trickier, more costly, and/or slower. But it will definitely work.

I haven't done it with a CompactLogix, but I have done multiple MSGs between a SLC and a ControlLogix and once I knew how to set it up, it was very easy. I'm not as knowledgeable with hardware constraints as others are (like Ken) so I won't say it'll definitely work, but once you know the address of what you want to send from the SLC, it's just a matter of setting up the tags in the Logix controller to accept it and then figuring out the networking. Mine was over DH+ so that may have even been trickier than what you are looking at doing.

Thanks so much. I will mess around with it in a few weeks.

I do it all the time with the newer 505s. Easy peasy.