MSG instruction class and attribute

geofftheelectrician

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Join Date
Jan 2016
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London, ON Canada
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Once again I’ve found myself getting just enough info out of an AB manual to get my device working, but not enough to make me happy. I’ve been using the MSG instruction to access explicit information out of VFDs and other devices not available through the project tree and its associated controller tags. Today I used it to set up an 842E-MIP1B Ethernet encoder so I could set my machine zero point. I’ve noticed that for the different times I’ve utilized this instruction the class seems to point to a specific device type and there are other attributes that are specific to the information written to or read from the device.

Does anyone know of an AB manual that lists the different devices and what class number they would be and the list of attributes for each device and what information you are reading and writing? For example the 842E encoder I was working on was device class 23, but if I go by memory, the 525VFD I read parameters from was a device class 93.

It seems the only information available is specific for a certain application in each device manual. While that is great to get me going on that specific instance, I would also like to see the big picture.

Any help would most certainly be appreciated. Thanks all in advance!
 
Once again I’ve found myself getting just enough info out of an AB manual to get my device working, but not enough to make me happy. I’ve been using the MSG instruction to access explicit information out of VFDs and other devices not available through the project tree and its associated controller tags. Today I used it to set up an 842E-MIP1B Ethernet encoder so I could set my machine zero point. I’ve noticed that for the different times I’ve utilized this instruction the class seems to point to a specific device type and there are other attributes that are specific to the information written to or read from the device.

Does anyone know of an AB manual that lists the different devices and what class number they would be and the list of attributes for each device and what information you are reading and writing? For example the 842E encoder I was working on was device class 23, but if I go by memory, the 525VFD I read parameters from was a device class 93.

It seems the only information available is specific for a certain application in each device manual. While that is great to get me going on that specific instance, I would also like to see the big picture.

Any help would most certainly be appreciated. Thanks all in advance!

It wouldn't be an AB manual.....

Every manufacturer would define their own Class, Instance, and Attributes for the parameters you need to access, and sometimes they would be unique to that manufacturer, but don't be surprised that the same CIA values mean different things to different manufacturers. There is no policing going on, you just have to read the technical data for each device you work with.
 
It wouldn't be an AB manual.....

Every manufacturer would define their own Class, Instance, and Attributes for the parameters you need to access, and sometimes they would be unique to that manufacturer, but don't be surprised that the same CIA values mean different things to different manufacturers. There is no policing going on, you just have to read the technical data for each device you work with.

Good point Daba. I wasn’t really thinking about 3rd party devices as my plant is an AB spec for the majority of automation equipment and components. It would make sense that it would be a huge manual and would need to be constantly updated.

At the very least an online reference database for AB components administered by AB would be more manageable.

Thanks for the reply and have a great night.
 
The big picture comes from the various specifications that define CIP and EtherNet/IP (and devicenet, controlnet, etc) from odva, (https://www.odva.org/). They are not free, and they are not an easy read, either IMHO, when you do get them.

However, as a reference, they are good to have around. They have all the objects and attributes spelled out in some detail so once you know what your particular device supports from that device manual, you can get more details if you are so inclined.
 
The big picture comes from the various specifications that define CIP and EtherNet/IP (and devicenet, controlnet, etc) from odva, (https://www.odva.org/). They are not free, and they are not an easy read, either IMHO, when you do get them.

However, as a reference, they are good to have around. They have all the objects and attributes spelled out in some detail so once you know what your particular device supports from that device manual, you can get more details if you are so inclined.

That’s awesome! Thanks Robert for your input, not being free might be an issue with our bean counters but we will see.
 

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