Ethernet/IP devices

[a.wais]

Yes

[Lightwave_Computing]

It looks like this driver is only good for modules from Turck TBEN-S modules according to the download description, which limits its use.  It would be nice if there was one for implicit Ethernet/IP communications that would work with any EIP device.

 

[rolfk]

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@Lightwave_Computing wrote:

It looks like this driver is only good for modules from Turck TBEN-S modules according to the download description, which limits its use.  It would be nice if there was one for implicit Ethernet/IP communications that would work with any EIP device.

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You're not exactly asking for little, are you? 😀

"Any" device will be very hard to do, as Ethernet/IP is simply a protocol that can be applied to different devices in quite different ways.  And there are actually devices that are more compatible to the standard than others.

That said, the Ethernet/IP protocol used underneath that driver is accessible to you, the Turck library is simply a library of higher level functions to implement the Turck specific device profiles for their various hardware modules.

So you can use the low level functions to communicate with your specific device but yes you will need a good understanding of how that devices maps its functions to Ethernet/IP data points.

While not the same, you can compare Ethernet/IP also with Modbus. Modbus is a standardized protocol to transfer bytes (actually 16 bit words or 1 bit coils) over the line. Which 16-bit word(s) is/are the setpoint or current value in a temperature controller, or the current power in a solar energy converter is however very manufacturer specific. There doesn't exist a single Modbus driver than can give you device specific functionality for temperature controllers AND motor controllers AND temperature sensors AND pressure transducers AND solar converters AND ..

And even the same type of device from different manufacturers or even often different product series from the same manufacturer will normally have completely different register maps.

Similar with Ethernet/IP: a motor controller requires very different data items than a temperature controller. Ethernet/IP provides the mechanism to transport numbers, booleans and strings over the network based on a name or ID, but how those items are called and what they mean, can and will vary between the different devices. 

[Kyle97330]

To anyone who needs it:

I have been able to get Ethernet/IP working in LabVIEW using what I found here:

http://eeip-library.de/

They have a .NET DLL that works under LabVIEW and even have a very small bit of LabVIEW example code to download.  I have code in production using it on two different devices at the moment.

[Lightwave_Computing]

I ended up successfully using an ethernet/IP scanner from Beckhoff using the ethernet/IP manufacturer's EDS file to define the device and Beckhoff's LabVIEW driver.  What I was saying was it would be nice if this functionality could be done in-house at NI since the Beckhoff integration is not very LabVIEW friendly.