Devicenet setup

[motioncontroller 0]

Hey there all, I am starting another project using devicenet. This is the first time that I have worked with devicenet, so..... We use a 90-30 set up to control our normal system and now our great salesmen have told the customer that we can control one of their other vendors systems.(IC693DNM200) It includes 238 bits dispersed over 4 different nodes. Just to make it easy on me, YAHOO... I have to design this system in Canada and it is meeting the customers system in Singapore. I am heading over there for testing and commissioning. As I type this I am cringing, what sort of surprises could I run into; in other words has anyone any tips/tricks to help a guy out so I don't end up over there with my pants down. (I do have 4 months before I get there thank God) Cheers Andrew

[PdL 71]

I would order the controller, 1 or 2 slaves (or have them send them to you) cables and software, print a load of manuals and just start setting up the system for testing. First you setup the Devicenet master in your controller in which you specify how many and which type of I/O modules are connected. Then you configure your slave node adresses and connect them. Then you can test if the I/O is correctly mapped in your controller and use is as general I/O in your program. Few things to pay attention to: - Be sure to reserve enough memory area in your controller to use for I/O mapping. Reserve the area contigous and preferably try to use adress numbers related to slave adresses for instance or at least put the slave comments in the symbol names/comments. Like DI_S02_00_01 could be Slave node 02 digital input 0.00 - Think about what you want to do with your outputs when the bus goes down. Most output slaves have a setting to either freeze or switch off outputs when the bus goes down. - The master also holds status information which tell you which slave has an error or is down. You can use this to generate an alarm on your HMI or a general bus error relay. Just my 0.02$, hopefully someone with hands on experience with the master can give more specific tips.

[Steve Bailey 118]

PdL is absolutely correct. The old joke, "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?" applies here. The answer of course, is "Practice!" Have you ever done anything with Genius I/O in a 90-30? There are a lot of similarities, since both networks do essentially the same things. They just do them a little differently. If you are already comfortable with Genius, you should be able to handle the transition to DeviceNet OK. Get as much documentation as you can for every device that will have to be on the network. While DeveicNet is a mature standard, not all devices utilize every available feature and you may find that the default settings for the product from one manufacturer cause problems with the product from a different manufacturer.

[RussB 22]

With Devicenet and the DNM200 the most important thing is that you get the most current EDS files and set the data lengths correctly for each slave. Most EDS files will do this for you too but all, most Robots generally set this to the max available and can be adjusted at the slave or purchased in different sizes, in these cases the Master may need to be changed to match the slave. If you do not need to use Datagrams or messaging that is about all you need to do, as a Canadian baker would say "it's a piece of cake, sweet eh"?