Citect coms to multiple M340 PLC's

[Dead_Lemon]

Hi All

I'm hoping someone can shed some light on my issue

For a project we have 4 M340 PLC's controlling separate on a site, although 2 of them are pretty much idle, and we need to be able to pull information from all of them

So far I've managed to add a single PLC to Citect, successfully, and am able to read and write values to the PLC with out an issue, but when I try and add a 2nd PLC it all goes downhill

I feel that the way I have gone by add the 2nf PLC is wrong, I generally continue to get errors

The last successful way I added two PLC's, was using the express wizard, twice, but the program compiles, but now I have no way to choose which PLC Citect must pull information from

Anyone know of the best way to add multiple PLC's to Citect would be awesome, as that program is starting to get very frustrating, and the help file is vague with networking

 

[cottagewood]

Could you give some more detail, how are you networking the PLCs, ethernet?

 

[FLAengineer]

How are the four PLCs networked together? There will be a way in the Citect Boards/Ports forms to direct the reads/writes to the correct PLC. You will have a different I/O Device for each one, and that address will be in the tags for that PLC.

 

[Dead_Lemon]

Thanks for the replies

The 4 PLC's are all connected via ethernet

But I actually managed to come right, tried quiet a few things, seems that not running the 'Computer Setup Wizard' seems to throw a spanner in the works

Quick question, seeming that I got com set up, I started adding some tags to my SCADA, and I can easily add %MW###.# to project, and read and write to and from the PLC, but I can't seem to figure out how to read a value directly from my input card or output card, I assumed that using %I0.2.16, for example, would work, but Citect doesn't like it, is there a way to directly read data or write data to physical IO?

Anyway, So I figured I would post the way I got coms, incase someone else is ever stuck with such a situation, seeing that I struggled to find information

So Firstly I set up my Servers (All local):
Defined Cluster
Defined Network (as localhost:127.0.0.1)
Defined I/O Server

Next, adding PLC
I did this by running the 'Express Wizard' under communications
Communication -> Express Wizard -> Next
Select existing I/O Server -> Next
Create I/O Device: Give it a unique name -> Next
Type of I/O Device: External -> Next
Select method of Coms: M340 -> Modbus/TCP (Ethernet) -> Next
Enter IP Address: EG: 10.2.16.30 -> Port: 502 -> TCP -> Next
Next -> Finish

Afterwards, run the 'Computer setup wizard', I assume this can be run at any time, but seems to be essential that it is run once per project

Adding a Tag
Variable Tag Name: *Anything here*
Cluster Name: //Select appropriate cluster
I/O Device Name: //Select the IOdev that you want to communicate to
Address: //Marker Word address used in PLC, EG: %MW100.0
Data Type: DIGITAL

 

[BobB]

Which driver are you using? There should be an extra help file with the individual driver. I have just connected 11 Omron PLCs to Citect 7.3 via Ethernet and then through to a secondary Controller Link network without any real problems. I have also connected some meters on Modbus TCP from the same computer and it is all working well. The driver help was excellent for bot drivers. The only issue I had was setting up routing tables to connect the Ethernet and Controller Link networks in the PLCs themselves and a routing table in the Omron Sysmac Gateway softwre. Citect was quite easy - and so were the others when I figured it out.

 

[cottagewood]

I have a feeling that the driver only supports %M, I only say that as I looked at a project we did a few years back and we moved all the IO words to M words in the PLC. I looked in the Help file at Data Types and only MW is listed.

 

[Dead_Lemon]

Which driver are you using? There should be an extra help file with the individual driver. I have just connected 11 Omron PLCs to Citect 7.3 via Ethernet and then through to a secondary Controller Link network without any real problems. I have also connected some meters on Modbus TCP from the same computer and it is all working well. The driver help was excellent for bot drivers. The only issue I had was setting up routing tables to connect the Ethernet and Controller Link networks in the PLCs themselves and a routing table in the Omron Sysmac Gateway softwre. Citect was quite easy - and so were the others when I figured it out.

I'm assuming that the Modenet30 is my driver I'm using?
I battle to use the help file a bit, never quite seem to find what information I'm looking for

I have a feeling that the driver only supports %M, I only say that as I looked at a project we did a few years back and we moved all the IO words to M words in the PLC. I looked in the Help file at Data Types and only MW is listed.

Shot, that's what I thought may need to be done, a little odd though, you would think that they would develop the driver to work with reading direct IO