ENet connections on SLC platform

[Biscuit 0]

I am trying to bring some of our older processes online at my plant for barcode printing and data collection. A few of these older processes have 5/04 processors and all of the remote I/O is using Data Highway Plus. I have used the ENI modules to provide an ethernet connection to these processors and can see them just fine, but I am having a problem with the limited number of connections allowed by the ENI module. As far as I can read the ENI only allows 4 connections and so some of the connections from my server based applications keep getting bounced so my data collection and/or barcode printing is rather unreliable. For example, if I hit the processor via the ENI module over our wireless network, the ENI remembers my gateway address and holds one of the four connections and the server cannot connect. My question is this, does anyone know of a way to terminate the connections so that it is available for the server based applications? Is there some way to expand the maximum number of connections? Is there a better interface than the ENI module? I have found what appears to be a interface module from a company called DataLink Technologies, but have not had much time to research it. Anyone heard of this company? Thanks for the help!

[OkiePC 14]

You might want to try a Digi One IAP in place of the NET-ENI. If I were to bridge from ethernet to DH+, I'd lean toward the Controllogix Gateway approach rather than a 3rd party DH+ module. To set up a Controllogix gateway, you simply put a 4 slot logix chassis with power supply, 1756-DHRIO card, and 1756-ENBT card on the DH+ network. Then your applications can access the 5/04s through that gateway instead of a serial port gateway at each machine. Another approach to try might be to use MSG instructions to concentrate the data in one of the PLCs and do all your data collection from that machine.