Ethernet/IP with Festo motor driver - assembly not working!

[maszup]

I'm trying to set up connection between PC and Festo motor controller (with Ethernet/IP module).

PC: Win x86 LV2012SP1f4 + NI Ethernet/IP 1.3 driver

Festo Motor Driver: SMMP-AS-C5-3A-M3 with CAMC-F-EP ethernet/ip module included

I'm able to read all classes/instance/attributes that fest offers but i have problem with assembly.

Via assembly instance 101 i suppose to read the 16B data frame from controller and via assembly instance 100 i suppose to write the 16B data frame to controller. That works without error. The size is return correctly as 16B if i read attribute 4.

But the data inside does not change at all, the read data does not correspond to the actual state of the controller and written data has no impact on the controller as well.

Anyone know what the reason may be?

Attached my simple Vi to communicate with the controller:

Niether NI tech support niether Festo support is not able to help me. NI thinks this is controller issue, Festo thinks this is labview driver issue since the communication is working with PLCs like AllenBradley. I stucked in between.  

Thanks for any kind of help

[DeltaJ]

Hi Maszup,

I've worked with FESTO motors before but not through Ethernet/IP. I used CANOpen with NI's drivers (I think the library was deprecated when NI switched their cards to X-NET) and it worked quite well. So these suggestions are more general suggestions inspired by that caused me some problems when I started out with the FESTO motors - a lot of them are obvious hardware things to try anyway.

• I couldn't open your VI (I'm LV11 rather than LV12) to check but the constants on your VI don't have the radix visible - you have everything is hex rather than decimal?
• Might you need a time delay between the read/write command (again - I'm not familiar with Ethernet/IP - I seem to recall there is no handshaking for a lot of the commands??)
• When working with CANOpen FESTO had two communication standards to choose from: FHPP (their own) and DS402 (industry standard). NI's drivers used industry standard. It might be worth checking the configuration of your controller using FESTO FCT to see if there are other communcation options.
• If you can communicate with the controller using third party software (which I guess FESTO tech support are doing) get your hands on a packet sniffer/analyser and see if you can figure out the difference between what they are doing and what your code is doing.

Apologies for the highlevel suggestions - I'm sure they are boxes you've probably ticked already.

Good luck,

Dave

[maszup]

thanks for a reply

1. to open a vi you need to have also ethernet/ip drivers installed. i have radix visible and use hex values for representation but this does not matter really. i have included VI downgraded to LV2011

2. i tried with delay in between but this ddoes not help. anyway i read/write to different instances/registers so that should not matter too.

3. Indeed the protocol is FHPP and it seems there is no other option but i will ask Festo. Do you think labview ethernet/ip driver will not work with FHPP? i will ask ni tech too. if so i think this will be the reason!

4. i do not have other application that is working with festo driver on pc. i have only assurace from fest it will work on PLC. 😐

i think the

[DeltaJ]

Hi,

Thank you for attaching the vi in LV11....I need to upgrade;-)

If I were you I'd double check your constants again. When I displayed the radix (see screenshots) they were in decimal state. That means you were addressing Object x64 (d100) rather than Object x100 (d256). The same for Object x101. In the screenshot below you can see how to right-click, select display format and then you have a lot of dispay obtions (including hex or decimal).

FHPP is 'FESTO Handling and Positioning Profile' so it really does depend on how closely it matches the industry standard. To be honest I have no idea how close it is or not - I just know its different than CANOpen. With luck it in Ethernet/IP it might be similar at the driver level!

Anyhow assuming the radix issue doesn't give you a quick fix the FHPP is probably the main issue. I'd ask FESTO to point you at the software their tech support uses - usually they use freeware/shareware PC based software so you should be able to replicate what they do on your own system. Then with a port-sniffer you might be able to reverse engineer the FHPP to match what NI drivers produce.

All the best,
Dave