EthernetIP

Connecting Rockwell, Omron, Schneider and other EthernetIP based PLCs with realvirtual.io

EthernetIP interface is only included in realvirtual.io Professional

Introduction

EtherNet/IP (IP = Industrial Protocol) is an industrial network protocol that adapts the Common Industrial Protocol (CIP) to standard Ethernet. EtherNet/IP is one of the leading industrial protocols in the United States and is widely used in a range of industries including factory, hybrid and process (source Wikipedia see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EtherNet/IP). Ethernet/IP is used by a large number of PLC manufacturers like Rockwell, Omron or Schneider.

The Interface is supporting the following datatypes:

Signal Type	Description
REAL	Real data types, transfered to PLCOutput/InputFloat
BOOL	Bool data types, transfered to PLCOutput/InputBool
INT	INT data types, transfered to PLCOutput/InputInt
SINT	SINT data types, transfered to PLCOutput/InputInt
DINT	DINT data types, transfered to PLCOutput/InputInt

Interface configuration

The interface needs to be configured in the Inspector like this:

You need to select the IP-Address of the Controller, the Path, as well as the PLCType and the Protocol.

When the Debug Mode is activated additional Debug Messages are printed into the Console log for testing.

Defining signals

It is not possible to import the signals from the interface itself. It means that you have to define the inputs and outputs manually in realvirtual.io as sub-objects under the interface. It is very important to define the original data type as well (see the supported data types above). Alternatively, you can import a CSV table that will automatically create the signals if they do not already exist. The signal table must be a CSV table without header. The columns must be Symbol, INPUT (or OUTPUT), Type and Comment. The type must exactly match the supported data types.

With the button Select PLC signal table the CSV can be selected and then the file is imported with Import PLC signal table.

© 2022 in2Sight GmbH https://realvirtual.io - All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including printing, saving, photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher.