TCP/IP with KEYENCE DL-EP1 EtherNet/IP network unit

[Lukexu]

I am trying to use Labview to read a KEYENCE sensor P value through Keyence DL-EP1 Ethernet IP unit.

-Keyence sensor:

 IG-1000:   http://www.keyence.com/products/sensor/positioning/ig/models/ig-1000/index.jsp

 DL-EP1:  http://www.keyence.com/products/sensor/positioning/ig/models/dl-ep1/index.jsp

For the communication, I am wondering there are two ways:

first:  in MAX- VISA TCP/IP resource,  the 3rd one, manual entry of raw socket: enter the IP address and port number( how can I find the port number of  DL-EP1???)

Second: use the TCP subVi, otherwise I  cannot get it works,

Would someone share me some ideas? huge appreciation in advance

[UrielDM]

Did you find the solution? Im also trying to connect a Keyence Ethernet Device. But i dont see it on NI MAX.

[Shawn_P.]

ok, so I don't know if you solved this already or not. I am working with something similar. What I did to find the port number was to create a program that tries to open a connection using TCP/IP connection with the IP address. Using a loop, shift registers, and increment I kept looping to try all ports until i got a successful connection. Setting a case selector on the error output from the TCP/IP connection, it would close the connection if one was found, otherwise continue. Of course, I made sure to have an indicator to see what port it was on as it looped and completed. Remember to change your default value for timeout to around 500 ms or less. I did it at 1 s and it took a day to find the port.

[sankar06]

Hi, I am using same devices for my application. I want to do cyclic communication with the DL - EP1. For this what are the configuration needs to be done with LabVIEW/PC Side. else how to

Thanks in advance

[royyerr]

hello Shawn_P  you can help me, i need comunicate the same devise with labview tanks.

[rolfk]

EthernetIP is a specific protocol. While it can be implemented in LabVIEW using the TCP/IP nodes, it is anything but trivial to do so. In addition the necessary protocol documentation is reserved for members of the EthernetIP consortium which requires a yearly subscribtion that costs a few 1000 $ per year, up to 75'000 $ per year, depending on the member level you want to have.

The protocol is also pretty involved and allows for many different variants that have to be implemented exactly as the device expects it. So writing such a library yourself for anything than a specific device is anyhow out of question, but the fact that there is no publically available documentation makes even that very difficult.

That said NI does sell an EtherNet/IP for LabVIEW driver library that supports Windows and all the RT controllers from NI on which LabVIEW can run. Yes it is not free, but for that price you really can't even afford to bother a single day to find an alternative, and believe me trying to even come up with a minimal VI library that can communicate with your device over EtherNet/IP is going to cost you a lot more than a few days.

The other alternative is to communicate with the Keyence controller over the standard Ethernet interface (the network connector on the controller itself, not the DeviceNet or Ethernet/IP communication module you can attach to). However Keyence does also not document that protocol anywhere. They do however have for a few of their controllers a DLL based driver with API documentation and for a few of them there exist even LabVIEW VI libraries which access that DLL. You will need to contact your Keyence sales person for information for your specifc laser sensor controller, since each type of laser sensor uses it's own controller with its own specific version of communication protocol over this Ethernet connection. Although I see that your sensor is a small unit without seperate controller so this may not apply at all for you.