Hi,

I have an embedded system, the system has its own PC based interface and has physical interfaces for Ethernet and RS422.

I have a requirement to connect a number of Control Panels to this system. The type of panel I am looking at is a Siemens TP177B or similar. I have to say at this stage that I have no experience of PLC programming or of interfacing to control systems. When I read the Siemens literature I see reference to WinCC and WinCC flexible which appears to be a tool for configuring the panel to work with a PLC device.

I am trying to understand what options I have in connecting to a number of these panels.

The most obvious way is to connect the panels to a PLC, configure them using WinCC and then have the embedded system talk to the PCL, but I was wondering if there was a way of connecting these panels to my system directly using ethernet. The embedded system does not have a Profinet interface, but I could develop support for some form of protocol if I knew how to talk to the panel. The question is whether or not it is possible to connect directly to panels like these and exchange some form of protocol that would allow me receive button pushes and set control states on the panel screen.

 

Hi,

I am by no means an expert in Siemens equipment... From what I understand there is a Modbus TCP driver for the panel and thus you would be able to control the panels from your PC based interface, using Modbus TCP. This will require that your PC based interface acts as Modbus TCP master.

Forget about implementing a Profinet master on your PC based interface, Profinet is very complexed, especially compared to Modbus TCP.

Here are some links that may be of interest:
http://www.modbus.org/faq.php
http://www.modbustools.com/

You could also, use a Profibus Master PCI card, have your PC based interface communicate with the PCI card and it would control the Profibus slaves (Panels).


Just my 2 cents

Patrick Lansdorf

 

Hi Patrick,

Thank you for your reply, I have briefly played around with ModBus TCP in the past to drive outputs on a PI200 device. I used some software similar to that on the http://www.modbustools.com/ link you provided.
I am trying to understand the role of the ModBus driver you mentioned, does this reside on the panel and facilitate the panel acting as a ModBus TCP Slave or is the driver installed on the PC to facilitate communication from the PC.

Thanks again for you input.

 

Hi again,

Regarding the Modbus TCP driver for the panel, Siemens TP177B.
I looked at:

http://aunz.siemens.com/NewsCentre/ProductReleases/Pages/IAC_PR_SIMATICWinCCFlexibleSP1.aspx

and found the following text:

"MODBUS TCP/IP Driver
For the first time a MODBUS TCP/IP driver for all panels with integrated Ethernet interface as well as PCs with WinCC flexible Runtime.

MODBUS TCP/IP enables the linking of SIMATIC HMI operator devices via Ethernet to the Schneider Automation PLCs TSX Unity Quantum, TSX Quantum, TSX Unity Premium, TSX Premium (TSX 57), and others"

So to answer your question, yes the Modbus TCP slave driver would reside on the panel.

And with your PC (Modbus TCP master), you will read/write to the panel.

//Patrick L

 

Hi,

First you will want to use WIN CC Flex and not the full up package WIN CC for this application. WIN CC Flex is a lower end (Cheaper) package that will give you all the horsepower I think you need. Next when using the Siemens TP panels they will allow you to load an OPC driver to communicate to one or more of the same PLCs. You did not mention what PLC type (or Types) you are communicating to. But you may want a specific driver for the actual PLC used in the panels, as this makes it much easier in the programming of the HMI. your Siemens distributor should be able to either direct or get you to the supplier for these drivers.