HMI to Digital IO's without a PLC?

Lamboom said:

You are suggesting the MODBUS driver in Red Lion programming software:

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Yes. For Ethernet, select the Modbus TCP/IP Master.

For Serial, select Modbus Universal Master.

Hint: When you open the Driver picker, hit "M" and then "O" on your keyboard to jump to the right driver in the list without having to scroll past two hundred other choices.

OkiePC Looking forward to it... Thanks again...


PS: There are 4 choices on Crimson 3: Device Gateway, Encapsulated Master, TCP/IP Master (your choice)and TCP/IP Slave..


Hmmmm .. Master or Slave? Not Clear... The HMI is kinda the Master, the CLICK is just a glorified remote I/O module.. the LinMot Drive which the CLICK is running is using only Digital I/O .. no Eathernet/IP here... Why not slave?


PS: there is no choice for "Modbus Universal Master" ... typing M then O is good..

https://support.redlion.net/hc/en-us/articles/360021391791-Modbus-Primer

The Click does not have Modbus ASCII protocol on the serial port. It will support Modbus RTU only or ASCII (Custom) protocol.

+1 purchase the Ethernet Click - much faster

https://accautomation.ca/series/click-plc/

I hope this helps you out.
Regards,

Hi gclshortt Thanks.. I ordered one yesterday. You guys have helped a lot .. I'll post results.. There's one more tricky question coming... but, I'll wait an' see if i can work it out. to be continued..

Hi again gclshortt

Just wanted to say a special thanks for that link to ACC Automation. That's a wonderful source of information, and provides serious training for someone who is not familiar with that equipment. This really is going to be more fun than anyone ought to be allowed to have...

Lamboom said:

I'm wondering if there is a way to connect via RS232 a Red Lion HMI directly to a IO module via RS232 ... without using a PLC?

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If there is no such thing...and I must use a RS232 PLC..with an IO module (need 8 IO's) It cannot be Siemens, or Omron.. or Alan Bradley .. they want too much money for software, and updating firmware.



Gotta be simple.. and inexpensive... Thanks much for any ideas.

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Unisonics JAZZ???

jdbrandt

I Googled Unisonics JAZZ .. got nothing that would connect to a LinMot Drive ????

FYI... am learning that the Red Lion HMI is actually in many ways also a PLC... The G3 series can indeed connect directly to ADAM remote D/IO module 4020 via RS485 and can do exactly what I want ... without a PLC.


However, The CLICK PLC will be fun to use also .. looking forward to it. The final project will not need a PLC. Only the LinMot E1100 GP drive, the ADAM 4050 and a Kadet G304K200 HMI ... but, I believe the G304K000 will also work.... will find out By the way... both are no longer made by Red Lion.. Newer and much better ones similar, are now available.

OkiePC said:

If possible, I would forgo the I/O and just connect the positioning drive to the HMI.

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OKiePC... That may have to be the next try.. I've been working with the ADAM-4055, and trying to get the Red Lion HMI to communicate with that first.. So far... no luck.. and they even have a driver for the 4055. I did purchase the CLICK (Ethernet). It's nice looks link fun. .. but, I still want to make the 'ADAM-4055 work first.

Your suggestion about going directly to the LinMot drive from the HMI.. is very interesting...

OKiePC Just wanted to give an update.. the driver for Red Lion G3 HMI's doesn't have all the command's that one needs to write to DO's and read DI's without using 2bit hex to read and write to the D/IO registers. You can see they do not show "ON" where they should in the photo. this makes it quite hard to display the D/IO status on a HMI Page..

I can't imagine that Red Lion will on my behalf, edit the driver for these simple devices. The probable solution is to not use the driver and program all the commands, in the HMI's programs section. The Red Lion HMI's are more like a PC than an HMI anyway... Unfortunately, I am not good enough at programming in "C" type code to do that... For what it's worth.. you can see that the driver makes it possible to write to the 8 DO's as a word, but cannot write to a single bit. That takes a command not in the Red Lion Driver. As for reading DI's .. yes the HMI can do that "as a 2-bit hex number .. it's up to you to create 8 individual tags representing the binary version of that number, and display it, or use it in the control of an external device.

Page 1 CMD $AA6.jpg
The ADAM remote digital IO modules (4000) series.. are a chalenge to work with. The green arrow points to the read output AB, and the read input 03 the other zeros don't mean anything. So you het a "read" of D/IO's in two Hex numbers.. that's it... There is no scan of the DO register to make those "OFF" go to "ON" to follow what you see at the ADAM module... sigh!

I bet you can write to individual bits within any data type except a float. I am pretty sure you can display individual bits from any data type except floats.

The way I would expect the driver to work is that when you alter a tag that has a data source tied to a PLC driver, the HMI will write to that address and update it.

If the DO data type is integer, or long, you should be able to create a flag tag with the DO tag as the source and set it up as a bit array and pick the bit number. Then have the HMI or your Crimson program write to you flag tag, and let crimson handle the rest. Whether the bit array should be little endian or big endian might require some trials to determine and which bits correspond to which digital outputs may or may not be straightforward...

There is a lot of power when you use the formatting features at the tag level in Crimson and when you use device assigned tags as the source for other tags... Crimson has enough low level options to make most anything possible.

Can you post your Crimson file?

I am at home with Green Acres Internet and I only have Crimson 3.0 on this antique PC, but I am going to the office tomorrow and can look at it and offer some help.

HI OKiePC Nice to see you have a interest in this crazy undertaking.. there is no PC... that's what makes this interesting... there is only about 8 of the ADAM Commands available in the Crimson 3 driver for ADAM modules, and a very needed command is: #AABB(data) It's not in the Driver... yet... I'm going to try an get Red Lion Support to edit their driver


Here's my Database so far.. it's very primitive .. have had much help from Norm Galvin... no time to talk now... to be continued Thanks


Rats .. I can't upload a Crimson 3 Database.. .CD3

Anyone have an idea how to upload a Red Lion Crimson 3.0 Database file? type .cd3

Just change the file extension to one of the ones permitted by the website. Tell us what you did so that anyone who wants to view the file knows what to do.
You: Rename MyCrimsonFile.CD3 to MyCrimsonFile.txt
Recipient: Renames MyCrimsonFile.txt to MyCrimsonFile.CD3

Steve Bailey said:

Just change the file extension to one of the ones permitted by the website. Tell us what you did so that anyone who wants to view the file knows what to do.
You: Rename MyCrimsonFile.CD3 to MyCrimsonFile.txt
Recipient: Renames MyCrimsonFile.txt to MyCrimsonFile.CD3

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Thanks Steve! Nice trick .. we have to use a work-around on PLCs.net !