Develop code on .NEt with libplctag using RSLogic PLC emulator on Windows

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Scot Hudson

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Sep 20, 2021, 7:19:49 PM9/20/21
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we are tying to develop C# code to access tags on the PLC and currently, without the PLC are tying to use the RXLogix  Emulator in our development environment.  

 

Do you have any information on a strategy for communicating directly to the emulator?  We watched  a youtube video and have the library to communicate directly to the PLC…… but not sure how to get the emulator to respond to IP addresses on the PC network as if it was a real PLC on the network.  Our physical target is the AB Micrologix 1400 Controller  and we have the AB RSLogix emulator  running on Win 10 and .Net as well.  Any pointers will be helpful.

Kyle

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Sep 22, 2021, 12:24:21 AM9/22/21
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I think someone figured out how to do this in the past, but I am not finding it right now.  I will keep looking.

Best,
Kyle

Scot Hudson

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Sep 22, 2021, 7:23:58 AM9/22/21
to Kyle, libplctag
Kyle,
yes, I searched a bit and could not find it.  thanks for your help.  I also have a query into AB but if course they would recommend putting RSLinx on each machine which is not feasible for us. on our target application.

thanks in advance.  

Scot Hudson

850-251-4784 

Scot....@ALAESolutions.com


From: libp...@googlegroups.com <libp...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Kyle <kyle....@gmail.com>
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Subject: Re: Develop code on .NEt with libplctag using RSLogic PLC emulator on Windows
 
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radfor...@gmail.com

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Sep 22, 2021, 9:39:35 AM9/22/21
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I attempted this in the past but RSLogix Emulate 5000 uses AB_VBP instead of AB_ETHIP for its "adapter".  I ended up getting a used controller and chassis to do my testing/development.

Jody Koplo

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Sep 22, 2021, 11:58:25 AM9/22/21
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A co-worker of mine went down the route of trying to use the emulator to develop a C# app using a different AB library (INGEAR). His conclusion was that the emulator does not actually allow for network communication. Basically it's just there to develop and test AB code, you can't connect to it from outside of Logix 5000.

That being said, we built the libplctag.net library to expose interfaces for Tags (ITag) so that it's possible to mock/simulate a PLC and still run the rest of your C# code. At this point there's no out-of-the-box simulation for that so you'd have to do it in the places that make sense for your code. For example, if you wanted to develop a unit test that simulated a failed/timed-out read from a tag you could do that pretty easily. Simulating a full PLC for offline testing is harder, but I've considered building something generic for that.

Jody

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Kyle

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Sep 22, 2021, 8:32:10 PM9/22/21
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Note that there is the ab_server simulator in the C core library distribution.   It does not do much.   You can create a few simple types of tags and that is about it.   It does "speak" the EIP/CIP protocol well enough for the library to talk to it.  I use it as part of the CI tests and add to it once in a while when a strange bug comes up and I want to prevent regressions.

If you are trying to run PLC code at the same time, then I do not have any ideas.

Best,
Kyle

Scot Hudson

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Sep 23, 2021, 6:32:51 AM9/23/21
to Kyle, libplctag, Eze Nwaonumah, Charles Ford
Thanks Kyle, appreciate the help. We will give a try and report back.

Scot Hudson

850-251-4784 

Scot....@ALAESolutions.com


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