Re: EPICS with Automation Direct PLC

[Andrew Johnson <anj@aps.anl.gov>]

Tao Zhao wrote:
> I need to connect EPICS to Automation Direct PLC through Ethernet Base
> Controller. Have anyone done that? Would anyone recommand some online
> documentation for EPICS Device Support or Driver Support to read?

We are interested in being able to do this here at APS; we already 
communicate with Automation Direct PLCs using their DirectNet serial 
protocol, the software I wrote to do this is described at
   http://www.aps.anl.gov/asd/people/anj/directNet/
and the code can be found at
   http://www.aps.anl.gov/asd/people/anj/tar/directNetMpf1-0.tar.gz
It may be possible to re-use some of this software with an ethernet 
connection to the PLC, in particular look at the device support routines 
and the PLC status database.  If you can't reuse the code I would hope 
that at least the hardware address format I devised could be used, as 
commonality at this level will make it easy to move databases between the 
two device types.  See the above documentation for details of the format, 
it's simple and relies on named PLCs being configured in the IOC startup 
script.

Note that the above driver uses Marty Kraimer's MPF and mpfSerial for the 
serial port handling.

I am willing to help with questions and more, but after today I'll be away 
on honeymoon for the next 2.5 weeks (yay!).

- Andrew
--
There are 10 types of people in the world:
Those who understand binary, and those who don't.