Do someones know if PLCnext engineer can configure a PLCnext network and exchange some data among themselves? Doing the way by manually adding “Modbus TCP/IP” data should be excluded.
Thanks
Hello, Yes, this is possible in a number of way. Using Profinet is probably the simplest. My initial response to this earlier question includes a step-by-step description on how to set up two PLCs to exchange up to 512 bytes of data in each direction, using Profinet. Hope this helps. ~ Martin.
Hi, Martin,
Thanks for providing the link to the answer. That solves the question.
The total amount of data to be exchanged in one direction is 512 bytes and both directions are 1k data.
Can the amount of data be increased if the projects are big and there are a lot of data needs to be exchanged?
No, not between two devices. Profinet is generally used for “process data”, i.e. data to and from field devices like sensors and actuators. Having more than 512 bytes of process data would usually require a new I/O rack, simply because of the space required to physically wire that amount of I/O, and a new rack would provide another 512 bytes of I/O data. If you need more than 512 bytes between two devices, then I guess you are transferring something other than process data. Depending on the format of that data (e.g. in files, or in a database), it might be worth looking at another solution - perhaps something implemented in a PLCnext C++ component, that you can use in PLCnext Engineer. ~ Martin.