How to use two different network cards on RT?

[Jason Bourne]

Hi everyone... I'm currently working on a project where I have to deal with the issue mentioned in the thread's topic: I have a PC with RT LabVIEW that has to be able to establish network connections using two different network cards. One will be used to connect via TCP/IP with a host computer that will show the data transmitted through shared variables; the other will communicate with another PC through Modbus protocol. The key is that each communication is done through a separate network card.

So far I haven't been able to figure out how to configure both things to happen. Does anyone know how to do this? Any tips will help.

For the RT communication I'm using a standard RT project, with the RT PC being given one of the IPs, and for the Modbus part, I created an I/O server with a master and a slave. Separately everything works fine, but when I get them together it simply won't work.

Thanks for your help!

[Caseyw]

Hi Jason,

I am glad to help find a solution here. The first step is to use Measurement and Automation Explorer, find your real-time target in Remote Systems, and then click on Advanced Ethernet Settings. Here you should see a list of your Ethernet adapters by MAC address. Can you confirm that both adapters are enabled and set to use TCP/IP?

Regards,

Casey Weltzin

Product Manager, LabVIEW Real-Time

National Instruments

[Jason Bourne · Accepted solution]

Sorry it took me so long to answer, I've been busy lately....I've found a solution to the problem I mentioned, and just in case anyone has similar problems in the future, I'll shortly describe what happened.

As Caseyw suggested, it was necessary to enable both network cards through the Measurement and Automation Explorer. The cause of the connections malfunction was actually that I wasn't using the "right" protocol for the Modbus communication, which ran on the secondary adapter. The solution was to use the URL protocol with the correct path on the field, addressing the right IP address. To avoid making this post a mixture of topics, I won't elaborate futher, but I got the gist of it, so if anyone is having similar problems whether it is working with several network cards or with Modbus communication protocols, feel free to contact me, I'll be glad to help.

Thanks