Allen Bradley EIU32 EtherNet/IP to Siemens S7-1500

Good morning all,

I've got a customer in a bind. They, like many, got confused about Allen Bradley's EtherNet/IP protocol and assumed it was normal ethernet comms. They are attempting to pull motor control data from a ABB EIU32 universal motor controller into a S7-1500 PLC. I don't work much with Siemens, but after some Googling I found a document/example TIA Portal project with a “LCCF_CipClient" function block that is intended to read/write data between an S7-1500 and ControlLogix PLC. The FB asks for an IP address, rack and slot number to look for the Ethernet/IP data, with the EIU32 not being a PLC I'm worried this FB won't work correctly?

Prosoft card seems to be the best solution, but as always, time is a serious limiting factor and they can't wait for the hardware's long lead time. Anyone have any experience with a software solution? I don't have a physical S7-1500 or an EIU32 to bench test any of this with which is also adding to the difficulty.

Disclaimer: have no specific knowledge of the device you're using...

Siemens has 4 EIP libraries. CIP server & CIP client are for CPU to CPU communication. There are also EIP adapter and EIP scanner libraries; I'm thinking the EIP Scanner would make more sense for you.

https://support.industry.siemens.com/cs/us/en/view/109782314

Disclaimer: I am not an expert in Ethernet/IP.

If I understand what you write correctly, then there is no other Ethernet/IP Scanner, there is only the S7-1500 which must read data from the device.
If that is correct, the below link should work.
https://support.industry.siemens.com/cs/be/en/view/109782314
And you are on the wrong path if you are trying to make the S7-1500 a client.

Chapter 4.2 describes how you must manually setup the devices for which the S7-1500 must act as a scanner.
You have to read the relevant data from the devices EDS file and enter these at the corresponding DB addresses.
It does look a bit daunting though.

... too slow !

JesperMP said:

If I understand what you write correctly, then there is no other Ethernet/IP Scanner, there is only the S7-1500 which must read data from the device.

Click to expand...

Correct. The 1500 needs to read/write data to/from the EIU32. The EIU32 communication interface enables the UMC100.3 Universal Motor Controller to work on an EtherNet/IP™ network.

Also, this is a super noob question, but I'm never too old to learn....What is an EDS file?

The ABB EIU32 is not Allen-Bradley, but ABB. It's a different company.


EDS is "Electronic Data Sheet" and is used by AB (Allen-Bradley/Rockwell) software to know what it's connecting to. The Siemens version is a GSD file. See if ABB offers an EtherNet/IP GSD for this device. That may make it easier to connect.


The ESD file may give you enough information to make a connection; I'm NOT experienced in using them in a Siemens environment, though.



It may end up being easier to add a ProSoft module (or similar)to interface between the devices.

Thanks for the info, I'll check the GSD/EDS files.

joseph_e2 said:

It may end up being easier to add a ProSoft module (or similar)to interface between the devices.

Click to expand...

I'd love to add a Prosoft card, unfortunately the customer can not find one in stock.

joseph_e2 said:

The ABB EIU32 is not Allen-Bradley, but ABB. It's a different company.


EDS is "Electronic Data Sheet" and is used by AB (Allen-Bradley/Rockwell) software to know what it's connecting to. The Siemens version is a GSD file. See if ABB offers an EtherNet/IP GSD for this device. That may make it easier to connect.


The ESD file may give you enough information to make a connection; I'm NOT experienced in using them in a Siemens environment, though.



It may end up being easier to add a ProSoft module (or similar)to interface between the devices.

Click to expand...

GSD is for Profinet, not Ethernet/IP.
EDS is for Ethernet/IP.

As suggested, it may be a better solution to get a Profinet adaptor for the ABB device.
What is the EIU32?

For the ABB ACS VSD’s, they have 2x versions of the Ethernet adaptor. One does all 3x protocols (MBTCP/EIP/Profinet) & the other does the single protocol only (technically 4x versions I guess )

lostcontrol said:

GSD is for Profinet, not Ethernet/IP.
EDS is for Ethernet/IP.

...

Click to expand...

Thank you for clarifying that. I haven't mixed brands very much between AB and Siemens and I always used a ProSoft or Red Lion device between them except for one time I used a Profibus Flex IO bus adapter. Good to know that GSD/EDS is protocol specific instead of PLC specific. I just learned something!

lostcontrol said:

GSD is for Profinet, not Ethernet/IP.
EDS is for Ethernet/IP.

As suggested, it may be a better solution to get a Profinet adaptor for the ABB device.
What is the EIU32?

For the ABB ACS VSD’s, they have 2x versions of the Ethernet adaptor. One does all 3x protocols (MBTCP/EIP/Profinet) & the other does the single protocol only (technically 4x versions I guess )

Click to expand...

Thanks for clearing up the GSD/EDS confusion. I agree, a Prosoft card would be much easier, but we can't find one available to fit the customer's schedule.

The ABB EIU is an ethernet interface that provides EtherNet/IP connectivity for the Universal Motor Controller UMC100.3. I made an error in the title, there is no Allen Bradley in the system. I wish I could edit the title of this post.

I'm trying to get the UMC100.3/EIU32 data via EtherNet/IP to the S7-1500

If you can get your hand on a Windows industrial PC (which have DIN rail and use SSD), or a Linux industrial PC or a RevolutionPi or its equivalent, you could get a CODESYS license for the system you choose and very easily you can make your gateway. This would require the additional PROFINET device IO license which is inexpensive. CODESYS supports EtherNet/IP scanner by default and its engineering tool is very good. You can easily register the EDS file in the CODESYS engineering tool and set the IO connection between the EtherNet/IP adapter and the CODESYS program. Map the EtherNet/IP IO data in some variables, and on the PROFINET side configure the CODESYS local Profinet IO device that will talk to the S7-1500. Once you get the connection with the S7-1500 all you will need is a simple program that writes data to EIP from the PROFINET data it gets from S7-1500 and vice-versa.

I would give it a go with the Siemens library blocks.
If you can get your hand on any S7-1500 CPU and any Ethernet/IP device, you can setup a test rig.
The principle is the same for a different Ethernet/IP device, so you can get a long way by a test like that even if the devices in the test are not 100% identical with the final ones.