RSLinx not seeing backplane, can't ping module. Please help!

Hi, thanks in advance all for reading. I'm automating my lathe and I am using my AB CompactLogix L45 PLC as control. I followed the basic steps in RSLinx, here is what I did exactly:

Deleted all drivers.
Added EthernetIP driver.
Selected the fast ethernet driver, not the wireless one.
Ethernet cable is connecting laptop to EthernetIP module.
I open RSWho
I can see the EthernetIP driver in RSWho, but when I try to expand it, it just scans.

I opened the command prompt and tried to ping the IP address shown on the Ethernet IP module display, and 4 packets sent, 0 packets received, 4 packets lost, 100% packets lost.

It must be some sort of IP address/subnet mask issue, but I can's for the life of me figure out how to get it working. Any help is very much appreciated. Thanks!

You need to get the physical interface worked out before even bothering with RSLinx. It appears you cannot successfully ping the controller, so there are some basic network settings that are not configured correctly.

Since you have a L45, I assume that you have an ENBT module installed to the left of the controller. What is the ENBT's IP address, what is your IP address and how are you physically connect to it?

Thanks for the response dmroeder. Yes, immediately to the left of the processor is the ENBT module, followed by the power supply. I removed the SERCOS interface as I am not currently using my Kinetix6000 drives. I do not know the PLC's IP address, but the IP address shown on the ENBT module is 170.20.11.7 so I assigned the IP address 170.20.11.123 under the TCP/IPv4 settings on my PC with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0. I can see the network disappear when I unplug the cable and reappear when I plug it back in. Physically connected from the laptop to the ENBT module with an ethernet cable.

For clarity, the PLC doesn't have an IP address, the ENBT does. I suppose it is possible that the ENBT could require a cross-over cable Your IP address looks reasonable, assuming that what you typed there is accurate and you didn't transpose some numbers, like I occasionally do

You don't have a network switch between you and the PLC? If not, could you put one in between?

UPDATE
I can now ping my ethernet module. My ENBT module shows an IP address of 172.20.11.7 so I went to configure my network on my PC under TCP/IPv4 properties to an IP address of 172.20.11.123 with a subnet mask of 255.255.0.0 and now I can ping the ethernet module. Unfortunately RSLinx just scans, still doesn't find a backplane. Interestingly enough, when I execute ipconfig under Windows command prompt now it says "Media disconnected", and will not display any IP information, but I can still ping the ENBT module.

In RSLinx, when you add an Ethernet I/P driver, you can choose which network adapter it will scan on. I think it defaults to "any", you may want to point it to the correct adapter.

Or, for a test, you would add the older Ethernet Devices driver, then manually enter the IP address of the ENBT.

Not sure about your "media disconnected" issue, if you can ping the ENBT, then it is certainly connected. Maybe you are looking at the wrong adapter in the ipconfig list? Ether way, try the old driver, work on the EIP driver after you successfully see it with the old one.

I'll try that. Also going to power cycle the PLC and Laptop after reinstalling the driver and disabling network sharing on the PC. Will post results in 10 min.

"Have you tried turning it off and back on again?"

So the L45 is now showing up in RSLinx. In a nutshell, what I had to do was:

1. In Windows, set the TCP/IPv4 IP address to a variant of the IP address of the Ethernet IP module, i.e. where the module's IP address might be 172.20.11.7 set the TCP/IPv4 IP address to 172.20.11.123 with a subnet mask of 255.255.0.0

2. Now I could ping the module, but still could not connect to PLC. Running ipconfig from the Windows command prompt said "Media disconnected". So I disabled file and printer sharing (not sure if that had anything to do with it but it's what I did), then uninstalled the ethernet driver.

3. Powered off the laptop and the PLC. Powered all back on. Reinstalled the ethernet driver. Had to change the TCP/IPv4 IP address back to 172.20.11.123 after doing this. Then I started RSLinx, deleted the driver in RSLinx, then re-added the EthernetIP driver and magically the L45 is showing up. Not sure what the issue was, but it's working now! Hope this helps someone else. Thanks for your help dmroeder!

Nice! So are you in Lacey WA?

Yup! Right up the road from you. Can we DM on PLCTALK?

SolarNinja said:

Yup! Right up the road from you. Can we DM on PLCTALK?

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