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Accessing Siemens S7 PLCs over Node-RED - Printable Version

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Accessing Siemens S7 PLCs over Node-RED - Armin@netPI - August-23rd-2019

Today I want to highlight a Node-RED node that is able to read/write data from/to a Siemens PLC (S7-1200 or S7-1500) over Ethernet(PROFINET) on netPI.

The node's home is here https://flows.nodered.org/node/node-red-contrib-s7comm and is maintained by Hilscher.

We have included this node in netPI's Node-RED Docker Container you can pull from repository "hilschernetpi/netpi-nodered" from Docker Hub on your netPI.

If you have an "old" type of PLC such as S7-300 or S7-400 having no Ethernet connectivity but MPI/PROFIBUS instead you can use this device https://www.hilscher.com/products/product-groups/gateways/for-direct-mounting-plug/nl-50-mpi/ in between netPI and PLC and your are able to use ths S7  node too.

Thx
Armin


RE: Accessing Siemens S7 PLCs over Node-RED - jacp - February-24th-2020

(August-23rd-2019, 08:01 AM)Armin@netPI Wrote: Today I want to highlight a Node-RED node that is able to read/write data from/to a Siemens PLC (S7-1200 or S7-1500) over Ethernet(PROFINET) on netPI.

The node's home is here https://flows.nodered.org/node/node-red-contrib-s7comm and is maintained by Hilscher.

We have included this node in netPI's Node-RED Docker Container you can pull from repository "hilschernetpi/netpi-nodered" from Docker Hub on your netPI.

If you have an "old" type of PLC such as S7-300 or S7-400 having no Ethernet connectivity but MPI/PROFIBUS instead you can use this device https://www.hilscher.com/products/product-groups/gateways/for-direct-mounting-plug/nl-50-mpi/ in between netPI and PLC and your are able to use ths S7  node too.

Thx
Armin

Hi Armin,

I need to collect data from an s7-400 PLC (CPU 412-2) and I am thinking of buying a NL 50-MPI for this purpose, and use node-red s7comm node to pull the data.
I understand classic ethernet networking and read how to assign an IP the device however, I am completely new to industrial protocols and PLCs.

Besides knowing the tags name, DB, offset and data types, do I need to know anything more about the PLC runtime? Do I need to "register" the NL 50-MPI device in the PLC code? Or is it completely plug-and-play once the device is connected to the bus?

Best regards


RE: Accessing Siemens S7 PLCs over Node-RED - Armin@netPI - February-24th-2020

Hi there,

it is completely plug and play. We sell the netLINK MPI device now since 18 years. The driver and device firmware support any known S7 PLC with MPI/PROFIBUS interface.

Install the driver package from here https://download.ibhsoftec.com/neutral/IBHNet167Setup.exe. It comes from Company IBH Softec who is writing the software for the NL 50-MPI meanwhile (they call the same device IBH-Link, but it is the same as NL 50-MPI).

The NL 50-MPI device transparently routes the Ethernet packages that are coming 1:1 to the MPI/PROFIBUS port and finally reach the S7 PLC where they are answered and sent back to the requester. In your case the requester can be Node-RED and the S7-comm node that I mentioned above.

Thx
Armin


RE: Accessing Siemens S7 PLCs over Node-RED - jacp - February-24th-2020

Brilliant, thank very much for this information.
Regards