ABB AC500 with Red Lion HMI

[Aut0m8n]

/Hello! I've manage to go almost 20 years in integration without a Codesys project. The day has finally arrived... I've figured everything out with exception of how a Tag (variable) in Codesys is read from Modbus? Is it like Yaskawa or other brands that make you define a block of addresses for Modbus comm? I've googled, but haven't came up with much. The goal is to get a Red Lion HMI to communicate with an ABB AC500 plc and read/write tag values. Any help is appreciated!!!

 

[grnick50]

You can read a post I ve written a while ago about AC500 communicating with WinCC flexible via Modbus TCP/IP. I thing I posted sample code too.

Basically what you do is define a global variable and use AT to specify the modbus address.

i.e.
M9_Ton_time AT %MW0.340: DINT:=5000;
M9_Toff_time AT %MW0.342: DINT:=5000;

The amount of modbus registers available depends on the CPU. If you want to have retentivity then you have to define that in the CPU properties and change your syntax

M9_Ton_time AT %RW0.340: DINT:=5000;
M9_Toff_time AT %RW0.342: DINT:=5000;

(5000 is the initial value)

Care must be taken to do the addressing correct.
In the AC500 MW are splitted in segments depending on the CPU memory capacity i.e. %MW0.100, %MW1.100 etc.
In the tags the address of %MW0.100 is %MW100.
For bit tags bits need to be extracted from the MW. So as per the manual the byte order is motorola and the byte addresses are 2n and 2n+1 of MWn. For example:

%MW100.0 in WinCC Flex is %MX0.201.0
%MW100.8 in WinCC Flex is %MX0.200.0

https://support.industry.siemens.co...xible-and-abb-ac500/98834/?page=0&pageSize=10

 

[Highland Controls]

Modbus in the AC500 is confusing. You have to first be sure to configure it to use Modbus, then you have to try to figure out the addressing. That is where things get confusing. I have done it a few times, but try to avoid it. I highly recommend that you get an HMI with a CoDeSys driver. I have used ABB CP600 series and a KEB HMI with the AC500. It is as simple as exporting your tags from the AC500 and importing them into the HMI. Everything is there in it's native datatype. I have recommended to Red Lion that they come up with a CoDeSys drive, since I really like Crimson 3. They responded with the answer that there isn't enough business to develop it.

 

[Aut0m8n]

In the Red Lion Modbus TCP Master driver.. The only selections I have are the standard 4- holding registers, 3- analog inputs, 0- digital coils, 1- digital inputs. How does that relate to AC500 memory?

 

[Highland Controls]

It all depends on how you set it up. I believe analog inputs will something like "REAL_Variable AT %RD0.0:REAL;". Digitals will be something like "BOOL_Variable AT %RX0.200.0:BOOL;". By the way, the address that my Master used for that BOOL was 1600. Again, it is very confusing and the ABB help file doesn't make much sense. I usually don't have problems figuring out Modbus addresses, but the AC500 is a different story. I am using the R variables instead of the M variables because I want them to be retained. Have you set up Modbus in the AC500?

 

[Aut0m8n]

Under the Ethernet port > Protocols, I added Modbus TCP/IP Client. I'm using Automation Builder v1.1 (latest). It's really confusing !!! I thought the ModbusTCP setup of a Yaskawa MPiec series was bad.. I was wrong!!

 

[Highland Controls]

The MPiec is easy compared to this, especially since there is a driver for Crimson 3. The Modbus map in the Yaskawa help file makes sense. Again, I highly recommend an HMI with a CoDeSys driver if you are using the AC500.