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EtherNet/IP Driver for Industrial Communication

NI LABS GRADUATE - The NI LabVIEW Driver for EtherNet/IP is a now a released and supported feature available for purchase on ni.com.  The released version includes support for LabVIEW 8.5 and newer. You should not use the NI Labs version of EtherNet/IP support in shipping or commercial applications.

 

The EtherNet/IP driver provides a LabVIEW-based interface to directly communicate over the network with compatible EtherNet/IP devices such as Allen-Bradley/Rockwell PLCs. The driver provides mechanisms for both explicit messaging (in several formats) and I/O data communication. This allows communication and data sharing with a very wide range of PLCs and EtherNet/IP devices in use today.

 

Explicit Messaging

Messaging.PNG

The VIs on this palette use explicit messaging connections to read from or write  to a target.

 

Tag Read/Write and SLC500 Read/Write allow direct access into data fields stored on a PLC. The target must support Messaging class communications using either  Logix tag names or PCCC communication to register files. Supported targets of these message formats include PLCs such as  Rockwell's SLC 500, MicroLogix, ControlLogix and CompactLogix series.

 

The Get/Set Attribute Single VIs let you interact directly with individual instances of objects in the CIP object model on an EtherNet/IP device. While some classes of objects are standardized, others are device-specific. You should consult the manual of your device to determine the class, instance, and attributes you need to control your device.

 

I/O Data

IOData.PNG

The VIs on this palette allow the LabVIEW system to create an I/O assembly and  function as an adapter for a remote PLC. This type of communication is referred  to as Class 1 or I/O server communication. The device appears as remote I/O to the PLC and can be addressed within ladder logic as though it were local I/O. Class 1 communication allows the PLC  to establish an implicit I/O data connection with the LabVIEW system and  repeatedly exchange assembly data at a specific rate. Assemblies are treated as shared memory that is used to produce or consume data to/from the PLC. The data is exchanged asynchronously in the background.

 

Requirements

The driver is supported in LabVIEW running on Windows as well as LabVIEW Real-Time systems. Supported systems include:

  • Desktop PCs
  • PXI Controllers
  • CompactRIO
  • Compact Fieldpoint
  • NI Smart Cameras
  • Compact Vision System
  • Embedded Vision System
  • NI Industrial Controller

 

Note: When running on a real-time controller you must install the driver component to your target first via the Add/Remote Software tab in Measurement and Automation Explorer.

 

 

Download the attachment below and let us know what you think. The download attachment has been removed from this page. We'd love to get  your feedback!

Regards,
Natasa
Comments
Chris_N
NI Employee (retired)
on

I'd suggest some shipping examples in any future full release.  Thanks.

Elmar_NI
NI Employee (retired)
on

Hey,

it will be great if we add some examples.A communication example via EIP from a smart cam with VBAI to an EVS in LabVIEW will be awesome. Because I didnt found a tutorial in the latest vbai manual to EIP.

Kind regards,

Elmar

walleye
Member
Member
on

Hi,

Does this work with a Siemans S7 PLC or just Allens Bradley?

Thanks,

Walleye

BlueCheese
NI Employee (retired)
on

It works on any PLCs or devices that support the communication methods implemented (which have been increasing in number with successive releases). As an example, the Get/Set Attribute Single will let you interact with many CIP objects exposed by a device. You'd have to dig into the Siemens manuals and find out what kind of functionality it supports via EtherNet/IP.

Eric

smikel
NI Employee (retired)
on

Will an update for LV 2010 be released soon?

Salvador Mikel
National Instruments
Ingeniería de Aplicaciones
www.ni.com/soporte
Bill_Welch
Member Member
Member
on

I am also in need of a release to work with LV 2010.

Thanks

Bill Welch
BlueCheese
NI Employee (retired)
on

The latest 1.0.6 update just released now has LV 2010 support natively in the installer

jwalehwa
Member
Member
on

Awsome, thanks! I was just about to request the same thing. These work great

Hermann94
Member
Member
on

Hi,

are there any application examples for the use of Assembly-VIs available ?

I have no idea how to use them... for example I can't find a possibility to pass the IP-Adress of the PLC I want to scan ...

Thanks, Martin

Svendsen
Member
Member
on

Hi,

Is it possible to read/write strings in the PLC?

Best Regards Svendsen

joano
Member
Member
on

Is this release compatible with version 7.1?

Best regards,

Joan

aeastet
Trusted Enthusiast
Trusted Enthusiast
on

I do not see a way to address long data types with this. Is there a way?

Tim
GHSP
DarkLordOfG
Member
Member
on

Any plans to support 64 bit LabVIEW with this toolkit?  If so when?  We could really use it.

John

jlsmith1000
Member
Member
on

Yes, I really am in need of this toolkit working with x64 2010.  That would be excellent.

SamClydebergemann
Member
Member
on

Can't read EthernetIP Help.chm! Any luck there?

Vincent_R.
Member
Member
on

Hi,

In case we have a cRIO with 2 Ethernet Ports, does-it work transparently?

So, do the VIs can work on second Eternet Port, not the primary one?

Of course on PLC side, right IP address would be configured (the one of the second Ethernet Port of cRIO).

Regards

Vincent

Regards

BlueCheese
NI Employee (retired)
on

VincentR. wrote:


                       

Hi,

In case we have a cRIO with 2 Ethernet Ports, does-it work transparently?

So, do the VIs can work on second Eternet Port, not the primary one?

Of course on PLC side, right IP address would be configured (the one of the second Ethernet Port of cRIO).

Regards

Vincent

Regards


                   

Yes, it should work transparently.

Eric

Svendsen
Member
Member
on

Hi,

Does anybody know which port is used to communicate with the plc?

I like to know it since I have to do some port forewarding on my router.

Regards

Jacob

jlsmith1000
Member
Member
on

Jacob,

Go to www.rockwellautomation.com and then to the knowledgebase.  Look up article 29402 - TCP/UDP Ports used by Rockwell Automation products.  I don't know what hardware you're using specifically to answer you more directly, but this list should tell you what you need to know.  If you can't access the list, tell me exactly what communications hardware you're using and I can give you the port ranges it uses.

Regards,

Jeff

MWPNCookeville
Member
Member
on

Hello NI EtherNet IP Users and Administrators ,

I am having a problem, that may be related to a bug in the Labview Ethernet IP driver.

I have a Controllogix PLC running an electro/pneumatic/mechanical workstation that also has a LabView application on a PC doing some high speed data acquisition and analysis. The symptom I am experiencing is that if I am online with the PLC and actively monitoring and/or editing the PLC program, while the station is running, the communication between the PLC and the Labview PC via ethernet IP appears to lock up. This requires a complete cold start of the PC to re-establish communications. Simply re-starting the Labview application does not re-establish the connection.

If I am not online with the PLC while the station is running, the communication does not lockup, or at least the occurance frequency is greatly reduced.

I saw that there is a newer release of the ethernet IP driver available, was this created to address a specific problem? If so would upgrading to the newer driver correct my issue? Thanks!

Bill_Welch
Member Member
Member
on

I am personally just starting to dig into the IP driver. WE have done some testing with a compactLogix and had no issues yet. But are not putting a heavy load.

I am currently writing a test routine to exercise this in Labview. If anything shows up I will let you know.

Bill Welch
BlueCheese
NI Employee (retired)
on

MWPNCookeville wrote:


                       

Hello NI EtherNet IP Users and Administrators ,

I am having a problem, that may be related to a bug in the Labview Ethernet IP driver.

I have a Controllogix PLC running an electro/pneumatic/mechanical workstation that also has a LabView application on a PC doing some high speed data acquisition and analysis. The symptom I am experiencing is that if I am online with the PLC and actively monitoring and/or editing the PLC program, while the station is running, the communication between the PLC and the Labview PC via ethernet IP appears to lock up. This requires a complete cold start of the PC to re-establish communications. Simply re-starting the Labview application does not re-establish the connection.

If I am not online with the PLC while the station is running, the communication does not lockup, or at least the occurance frequency is greatly reduced.

I saw that there is a newer release of the ethernet IP driver available, was this created to address a specific problem? If so would upgrading to the newer driver correct my issue? Thanks!


                   

Are you using some software like RSLogix5000 on the same PC as the LabVIEW code is running on? If so, then you would likely run into issues because the EtherNet/IP protocol runs on certain fixed ports for certain types of communication (such as adapter I/O communication). Because it relies on fixed ports, only one application on the system can claim usage of those ports. Whichever app starts first that asks for them them will grab them.

Eric

MWPNCookeville
Member
Member
on

Thanks Eric, but that's not the case. I am running the Labview code on a separate pc from the rslogix 5000 software. I am running a pretty much "as fast as possible" communication heartbeat between the labview pc and the plc.

I set a value in the plc and wait for it to get echoed back from the labview in a different plc tag, and when the two are equal I add one to it. In this way I can monitor the health of the connection. If the connection fails I don't run the station.

I have been considering putting a time delay on the heartbeat, so as not to load the network as heavily, but it seems to work just  fine except when I am online with the processor using the RSlogix 5000. Actually it seems to work just fine for about two hours at a time even when I'm online with the PLC, but at about two hours it locks up and requires a labview pc restart...

jwalehwa
Member
Member
on

It sounds to me like you are "free running" in a sense which does create communication problems. I would definately put in a time delay, even 100ms will make a big difference. I would also suggest doing block reads and writes if you aren't doing that already. Also, the read and write messaging functions have session in and session out ports along with their error in and error out ports. If you don't have those wired together, there is a good chance of having a communication traffic jam. Wiring those together makes sure that only one of those messaging functions works at a time.

BlueCheese
NI Employee (retired)
on

MWPNCookeville wrote:


                       

Thanks Eric, but that's not the case. I am running the Labview code on a separate pc from the rslogix 5000 software. I am running a pretty much "as fast as possible" communication heartbeat between the labview pc and the plc.

I set a value in the plc and wait for it to get echoed back from the labview in a different plc tag, and when the two are equal I add one to it. In this way I can monitor the health of the connection. If the connection fails I don't run the station.

I have been considering putting a time delay on the heartbeat, so as not to load the network as heavily, but it seems to work just  fine except when I am online with the processor using the RSlogix 5000. Actually it seems to work just fine for about two hours at a time even when I'm online with the PLC, but at about two hours it locks up and requires a labview pc restart...


                   

What sort of communication are you using between the LabVIEW side and the PLC? Is it explicit messaging or Class 1 I/O? Also, on the LabVIEW side the driver is completely user-mode code. If you close LabVIEW there is no trace of the code left running. As such there should be no reasons that you should ever need to reboot to get it to work again. Are there any other details about your setup you can share?


Eric

MWPNCookeville
Member
Member
on

There is also a serial interface from the Labview PC to a motor control board. We are collecting accelerometer data from the motor housing while it is running. I originally suspected the serial port was locking up, and I suppose that could be the problem rather than the ethernet ip interface. The correlation between being online with the PLC and the problem still has me thinking ethernet loading however. Could just be a coincidence...

MWPNCookeville
Member
Member
on

Oh, and it's using explicit messaging...

DarkLordOfG
Member
Member
on

Any updates on the port to 64 bit?

John

MWPNCookeville
Member
Member
on

I will be making some changes this evening to try to minimize the ethernet loading while maintaining a more reasonable communication heartbeat rate.

dgtzaga
Member
Member
on

Excellent tools !! I think this is the bigger step to establish an Ethernet/IP communication. It opens a big world for Labview. We are using AllenBradley PLCs and some other devices over Ethernet/IP and this tools are working with LabView 2010 very well. Thank you very much

Fred_Genett
Member
Member
on

I have been playing with these tools for a couple of months now and they appear to work fine - thanks NI. Naturally these tools are marked for internal use only. What are NI thoughts for official release?

BlueCheese
NI Employee (retired)
on

Hi Fred,

The answer is "soon"

Fred_Genett
Member
Member
on

Thanks for the heads-up on the release. 

I wondering if you could point me in the right direction regarding using the Ethernet/IP Driver for mutiprocessor communication? I am assuming it is not as simple as making the Tag Read/Writes re-entrant.

Thanks again for a great job on these tools.

BlueCheese
NI Employee (retired)
on

FredGenett wrote:


                       

Thanks for the heads-up on the release. 

I wondering if you could point me in the right direction regarding using the Ethernet/IP Driver for mutiprocessor communication? I am assuming it is not as simple as making the Tag Read/Writes re-entrant.

Thanks again for a great job on these tools.


                   

Hi Fred,

All the VIs should already be re-entrant. You can have any number of operations overlapping simultaneously. Since the explicit communication methods are request/response-based, multiple independent requests can be submitted to the PLC simultaneously and they will complete in less time than completing them serially. The only limitation on the LabVIEW side is that the current code blocks a LabVIEW thread during execution while it is waiting for a response (rather than using LabVIEW occurences) and thus there is some limit to how many will actually run in parallel. How many will depend on how many threads LabVIEW is using (default is based on OS and CPU count, can be overridden by INI token), which execution subsystem you have the calling VI set to run it, etc.

Eric

Fred_Genett
Member
Member
on

Eric,

I just had a chance to test the reentrancy and everything seems to work fine.

Thanks,

Fred

jlsmith1000
Member
Member
on

Sooooo....any chance there's a 64bit version of the driver binaries on the horizon? hmm, hmm? inquiring minds want to know

BlueCheese
NI Employee (retired)
on

Yes, we are looking to have some sort of distribution of a 64-bit beta at some point (possibly outside of NI Labs). Details will come soon.

Eric

dwisti
Member
Member
on

Its not really clear in the product description for NI-Industrial Communications for Ethernet/IP part # 781656-01. Is the EthernetIP driver a 1 time purchase or a license for every RT system I deploy?  What happens when a new version is released?  Do I have to pay for updates?  Can this driver be part of my volume license agreement?

BlueCheese
NI Employee (retired)
on

dwisti wrote:


                       

Its not really clear in the product description for NI-Industrial Communications for Ethernet/IP part # 781656-01. Is the EthernetIP driver a 1 time purchase or a license for every RT system I deploy?  What happens when a new version is released?  Do I have to pay for updates?  Can this driver be part of my volume license agreement?


                   

I am not involved in the release of this new component, but my understanding is that it is a one-time purchase for development usage and includes support. I don't believe there is any run-time license needed for deployment aside from what is required for LabVIEW (and RT if applicable) itself. Your guess is as good as mine regarding updates I'd say talk to your NI sales rep for further clarification.

Eric

nonecure
Member
Member
on

What version is this driver currently at?  I have release 1.0.6 and I can't find any information on this driver.  If there is a new release I would like to know any bug fixes or new supported items.

Thanks,

Doug

Spex
NI Employee (retired)
on

The current version of this driver is 1.1.  With version 1.1, this product moved from the NI Labs experimental domain, to the paid, released product domain.  You can find the product page online at http://sine.ni.com/nips/cds/view/p/lang/en/nid/209676.

Spex
National Instruments

To the pessimist, the glass is half empty; to the optimist, the glass is half full; to the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be has a 2x safety factor...
Finland_
Active Participant
Active Participant
on

Hi guys,

Is there any evaluation version of

http://sine.ni.com/nips/cds/view/p/lang/en/nid/209676 available? Where can I download it?

Thanks,

Make

ThiCop
Trusted Enthusiast
Trusted Enthusiast
on

Hello Make,

You can download it from the ni.com/drivers page:

http://joule.ni.com/nidu/cds/view/p/id/2582/lang/en

Kind Regards,

Thierry

Kind Regards,
Thierry C - CLA, CTA - Senior R&D Engineer (Former Support Engineer) - National Instruments
If someone helped you, let them know. Mark as solved and/or give a kudo. 😉
ThiCop
Trusted Enthusiast
Trusted Enthusiast
on

I posted it to fast. This is the one for device net.

I only find the one titled NI-Industrial Communications for EtherCAT on the driver website.

Kind Regards,
Thierry C - CLA, CTA - Senior R&D Engineer (Former Support Engineer) - National Instruments
If someone helped you, let them know. Mark as solved and/or give a kudo. 😉
CaseyLamers1
Active Participant Active Participant
Active Participant
on

I am working on setting up communication with a CompactLogix PLC and I am having some getting started issues.  I believe I can use the Tag Read/Write VIs, but I am havin gproblems establishing communications.  Perhaps this is a configuration of my PLC issue, but I am not sure.  Not sure who to ask for help.  Please advise.

Thanks,

Casey

Casey Lamers


Phoenix, LLC


casey.lamers@phoenixwi.com


CLA, LabVIEW Champion


Check Out the Software Engineering Processes, Architecture, and Design track at NIWeek. 2018 I guarantee you will learn things you can use daily! I will be presenting!

nonecure
Member
Member
on

Here is an example of how I did it.  Also the key part is the syntax for the Ethernet connection.  The syntax is Note: <PLC IP address>,<backplane port number>,<Logix slot number>.

Mine is set to 192.168.1.5,1,0

Compact Logix.png

Hope this helps,

Doug

guillenxm
Member
Member
on

Someone has the librarys to download ??? thanksss

ThiCop
Trusted Enthusiast
Trusted Enthusiast
on

Hello guillenxm,

Please note the edited message in the original post:

"NI LABS GRADUATE - The NI LabVIEW Driver for EtherNet/IP is a now a released and supported feature available for purchase on ni.com.  The released version includes support for LabVIEW 8.5 and newer. You should not use the NI Labs version of EtherNet/IP support in shipping or commercial applications."

Kind Regards,
Thierry C - CLA, CTA - Senior R&D Engineer (Former Support Engineer) - National Instruments
If someone helped you, let them know. Mark as solved and/or give a kudo. 😉
chenxinju
Member
Member
on

I want to use  EtherNet / IP communication with a   ABB drive, and just do not know how to use Get / Set Attribute Single VIs?

engineerwx
Member
Member
on

I currently have this running in windows 7 and it works great.  Will it work with Windows 10?