Two Macs?

[Colin Carpenter 10]

Has anyone any experience of connecting two MAC screens (an E300 and an E900) to an FX2N PLC? I know I can do it with ethernet cards in the Macs, but just wondered if there was an add-on card for the FX2N that allows "direct" connection of the 2nd HMI. Thanks.

[Gambit 327]

You don't need a card you can connect the MAC's via the RS232 or RS485 ports. Use one for the PLC and the otherone for connection to the 2nd MAC. The cable layout you can find in the installation manual. Edited 6 Jun 2007 by Gambit

[Crossbow 296]

Each E-terminal has 2 serial ports. You can connect the unused one on the first terminal to the same type on the second terminal and the second terminal can see the PLC right through the first. Or you can add one serial port to the FX2N by using a BD board (FX2N-xxx-BD which could be 232, 422, or 485). The 422 model has the 8-pin round plug, and the 485 one has a terminal block.

[Colin Carpenter 10]

Perhaps I should have added that one HMI will be very close to the PLC (on the panel door) while the other will be about 60 metres away in an electrically noisy environment. Ideally, I'd like the local one to be RS422 into the PLC so that I can connect my laptop through the serial port in transparent mode, with the distant one connecting by some other means. I chatted to the Mitsubishi rep yesterday and he said that I could add the distant HMI to a 485 or 422 BD board, which would be fine, but I went on the old E-Terminals website and could only find the details for connecting a MAC to a 232 BD board, which makes me wonder if it can be done to a 485 BD board. The distant screen would be too far for 232 comms, so it would have to be the local one which used 232, with the distant one using the PLC programming port. That would be fine normally, but I've now got no local serial port to plug my laptop into. Has anyone actually conncted the RS422/485 port on a MAC to a 422 or 485 BD board just to see if it does work? Thanks

[Crossbow 296]

I have done a project where I used 2 E910 operator interfaces, one on the RS422 port and one on an FX2N-485-BD board. I had no problems, but I did have to solder the pins in the cable connector on the E-terminal end. Perhaps had I used the CAB8 (which is an RS422-485 converter) I could have used terminal block on both ends.