5380 use as a Pass Thru to another PLC?

I have a "complicated" situation but this is the short version. Our customer, another vendor (not the plant directly), has a isolated network at the plant for their machines and equipment. My PLC is connected to their network, and is connected to my own local IO network, (Dual NIC Mode). I have remote access to my local IO network via a cell router. The problem is that they are having issues with the communication logic that talks to my PLC and I really need to be able to get online and view that code on their PLC.



I think I have been told that some Rockwell PLCs will let you connect thru them to another PLC on another network. Is that true, and can I do that on a 5380?

Also does anyone else have any other suggestions? The other Vendor has a dedicate VPN tunnel to their network their at the plant, but the controls Engineer on site keeps dancing whenever I ask him to give me a IT contact at his company, so I can ask for access in that way.

Cell Reception in that section of the plant where he can connect in to his network is zero. So I can't TeamViewer in to his laptop thru his phone...

Yes you can, in Rockwell land they call it backplane routing. You set the network adapter to dual IP mode, assign both ports their address. How you configure RSLinx for going online is not intuitive, but it can be done

Edit: I don't have anything handy at the moment, I'm going off of memory. In RSLinx, as you expand below the 5380, there is an item you can right click on and select Properties. You'll get an IP address table where you can add the IP address of the PLC on the other network. Once added, you will be able to go online with it.

dmroeder beat me to it.

To expand on what's being said, you can create custom, nested node entries inside the ETH driver in RSLinx and establish a path to the remote unit.

JeremyM said:

To expand on what's being said, you can create custom, nested node entries inside the ETH driver in RSLinx and establish a path to the remote unit.

Click to expand...

^ Better explanation than my word salad.

I've definitely done a similar thing using DH+, leaving processor 1, going in through processor 2 and through the backplane and out to processor 3.

dmroeder said:

Yes you can, in Rockwell land they call it backplane routing. You set the network adapter to dual IP mode, assign both ports their address. How you configure RSLinx for going online is not intuitive, but it can be done

Edit: I don't have anything handy at the moment, I'm going off of memory. In RSLinx, as you expand below the 5380, there is an item you can right click on and select Properties. You'll get an IP address table where you can add the IP address of the PLC on the other network. Once added, you will be able to go online with it.

Click to expand...

JeremyM said:

dmroeder beat me to it.

To expand on what's being said, you can create custom, nested node entries inside the ETH driver in RSLinx and establish a path to the remote unit.

Click to expand...

I love you guys so much right now.


My only problem is, holy hell they have like 3 layers of PLCs using backplane routing on there side. I will have to hear back from their engineer to tell me which one of these is the correct PLC.

I guess he did tell me their network was a mess....

Just FYI FT Linx offers an auto browse feature for back plane routing. Very nice it shows you everything available on each subnet, and it's fast too.


But you can't use it on V30 which is what this PLC was using, so I had to use RSLinx.

Thanks again guys. This is going to make my life so much easier at certain plants.






P.S. This is programmers best friend and a Network Security Manager's worst nightmare. Thanks Rockwell for ignoring security concerns

I do like that about RA, got a PLC5 only on datahighway and a contrologix rack with empty spaces? chuck a DHRIO card in there!

We have several systems that use an **** for that, cant say I've ever set one up but they work well.

Ok maybe I'm just from sheltered happy valley but I'm confused, I know that has 4 letters but I really don't think it's a curse word. They are made by HMS networks.

cjfugal said:

We have several systems that use an **** for that, cant say I've ever set one up but they work well.

Ok maybe I'm just from sheltered happy valley but I'm confused, I know that has 4 letters but I really don't think it's a curse word. They are made by HMS networks.

Click to expand...

People usually put spaces between: e W o n

I think it got censored because there were some spam bots posting about it or something like that.

cjfugal said:

We have several systems that use an **** for that, cant say I've ever set one up but they work well.

Ok maybe I'm just from sheltered happy valley but I'm confused, I know that has 4 letters but I really don't think it's a curse word. They are made by HMS networks.

Click to expand...

We have a few e W o n s in the field. They kinda suck. Also some of our systems have CloudGate cell routers. We have started to use TosiBoxes. They are much better. More flexible than both.

But that was not what I was asking. I already had remote access to my PLC. The issue was that I needed to access a PLC on the OTHER side of my PLC. That is what I was asking about.

If only I could route through a 5380 to a PLC5 using DH+ my world would be a better place for a while.