Home / FactoryTalk Optix / PLC Communications
Description
A quick demonstration of how to configure communications to a Logix controller using FactoryTalk Optix Studio.
If using a CPU with an embedded Ethernet port, such as the 5370 and 5380 CompactLogix CPUs, or the 5580 ControlLogix CPU, the route will simply be the IP address.
If using an Ethernet module, such as the 1756-EN2T to bridge to the CPU, the route needs to be IP_Address\Backplace\CPU_chassis_slot_number (i.e. 10.10.1.11\Backplane\0).
The RA EtherNet/IP Driver supports Logix Controller families with firmware versions 32.00 and later.
The 1756-ENET, 1756-ENBT, and 1756-EWEB modules are not supported with the FactoryTalk Optix RA EtherNet/IP driver.
Visit this Rockwell Automation Knowledge Base article for more information: https://rockwellautomation.custhelp.c…
Contributed by Wayne Welk – YouTube – LinkedIn – GitHub
Transcript
(00:01) in this video I would like to show how we can configure the the communications from Factory talk Optics to a logic’s controller now in some previous videos that I had built I was using Factory talk Logics echo which is the emulator for an L8 uh control logic CPU and in those examples I just when I gave it a route or an IP address all I did was give it the IP address of the logic Echo controller which happened to be the loopback IP address which was 127.0.
(00:33) 0.1 but it turns out that I’m if I’m going to connect Optics to a real physical controller be it a control Logics or a compact Logics well that route might actually vary if if we’re going to access a a compact Logics or a control logic CPU that has the embedded ethernet port in the CPU then our route will simply be just the IP address of that CPU for instance the L8 control logic CPUs or the 5580 CPUs has an embedded ethernet port so if I was going to connect through that embedded ethernet port my route would simply be
(01:14) the IP address of that Port the compact Logics be a 5370 L7 or a 5380 L8 CPU has an embedded ethernet port so the route is simply the IP address of the controller but if I’m going to connect to a control Logics through an Ethernet module such as the 1756 d2t or NTR well then my route actually has to change slightly I have to give it a little extra information uh to basically get it to bridge through the ethernet module and then to the CPU itself so let me try to demonstrate this for you um so I got a uh I got a kind of a blank
(02:04) Optics project created and I’m going to go to the wizard and say configure Communications to devices and I actually have two CPUs that I’m connected to right now one is a control Logics through an en2t module and one is a compact Logics a 5370 l24 CPU so I’m going to do the compact Logics first just to show you that it’s simply typing in the IP address that’s all we got to do so I’m going to say a new Communications or New Station it’s going to be an RA ethernet IP station I’m going to hit next now for the route I’m going to Simply type in
(02:43) the IP address of that compact Logics again it’s I’m connecting to an l24 compact Logics CPU I’ll hit next I’m going to rename it to uh L4 CPU and I will choose next now I have two options to do my tags import you know importing my tags I can do offline which I can point to the ACD file or I can do online and to prove that the the route is done properly here i’ like to do online so I chose online it was able to go onto the network and connect to the controller and see the tags that are inside of it so prior to starting this
(03:35) video I’d made a few simple tags here test one 2 3 and four as well as the local um IO tags that are already created there so basically simply type it in that route I was able to uh find those tags um which is given it the IP address I can I can choose kind of select all and say next if I come over here to communication drivers or com drivers ra ethernet l24 tags controller tags and there they are now I’m going to do the same thing but for the control Logics so for my control object example again I have a 1756 2T module in the in the chassis as
(04:24) well as a CPU in the chassis now the CPU is currently in slot zer and the ethernet module is currently in slot one so I’m going to um I’m going to right click here on ethernet IP driver one and I’m going to say new station and this time I didn’t do the wizard I just built it here so when I go new station we can see that uh we we entered a new station here I’m going to go ahead and rename this to control Logics just so we’ll distinguish and if I expand here we will’ll see there’s tags and types and tag importer but I have not given it a
(05:10) route yet so I need to give it a route so I’m going to kind of stretch this out a bit so for the route if I’m going to bridge through an Ethernet module then the route is going to be the IP address which is 10.10 1.11 then I’m back slash and then I’m going to type back plane back plane slash and then the slot that the CPU is currently located in which is in my case is slot zero I’m going to hit enter now again if I’m bridging through an Ethernet module to get to the CPU if I just gave it the IP address without the back SL backplane
(06:03) back slz or the slot then it’s not going to connect it’s not going to find the tags it’s not going to allow you to import so this route this syntax is very important when we’re bridging through an Ethernet module so being that I didn’t do the wizard now that I have uh my route created I can I can double click on this tag importer which is underneath the control object and this will give me my ability to say offline or online so I’m going to choose online when I go online it’s going to go out on the network and it actually was
(06:43) able to make the connection through the ethernet module into the CPU to get all the tags so there are these are all the tags that were currently in my control objects CPU so bit more than what I had in my compact objects demo I will choose all and apply so now we can see that uh underneath my control objects my tags all the tags imported as well as my compact Logics all my tags imported there as well so a few other notes uh about connecting to a logic controller uh one you do have to be at verion 32 firmware or higher in order
(07:33) for Optics to work with the logic controller so the ra ethernet IP driver will support logic controllers that have firmware version 32 or higher also if you’re trying to bridge through an Ethernet module and a control logic’s chassis um the en the enbt and the eweb modules which are all older um control object ethernet modules are not supported so we’re going to use our newer ethernet modules such as the en2t the en2 TR or the en4 T the en4 TR those will be supported for Optics so again version 32 and we want to make sure we
(08:20) have one of the newer ethernet modules as well if we’re using the L8 CPU again the 5580 such as like a 1756 l 81e then we can of course directly Connect into the embedded ethernet port of the CPU if we choose and again if we were to use the embedded ethernet port we do not need to put the backs slashback plane back slash uh slot we could just put the IP address as the route there is a knowledge based article on Rockwell’s website which is open and available to everyone I’ll put a link to that here in the video which kind of
(09:00) explains everything that I’ve just kind of talked about and demonstrated in this video