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+--- Thread: netPI RTE 3: access from several comm. masters (/thread-733.html)
netPI RTE 3: access from several comm. masters - tad - June-2nd-2021
Dear Armin,
Can 'netPI RTE 3' perform real-time communication with multiple masters (PLCs)?
That means whether netPI can support Shared device function in case of PROFINET.
At this time, I have 2 EtherNet/IP scanners to communicate with 1 netPI.
Thank you very much for your advice.
Best regards,
RE: netPI RTE 3: access from several comm. masters - Armin@netPI - June-2nd-2021
Well Tad, netPI embeds a standard netX51 network controller. The controller needs a firmware loaded into its FLASH memory to operate in mode PROFINET, EtherNet/IP, EtherCAT and so on. So there is nothing special with netPI in relation to netX. Basically you can say that netPI is a kind of embedded Linux platform for netX51 evaluation/programming purposes.
So since netPI is a standard netX51 host all the informations about the protocols available for this controller collected on our knowledge base here https://kb.hilscher.com/display/HILKB/Technologies are valid. This comprises the documentations, the change logs and also, firmware function etc. This means in turn all the functions described on this pages are supported by netX51 used in netPI.
Since I am not the protocol expert in all details you can read on these knowledge base page about the different supported protocol functions yourself if two master communications are supported or not.
You know that we are providing netX programming examples already here: https://github.com/HilscherAutomation/netPI-netx-programming-examples. But these programming examples show just the very basic functions of all the protocols. Just the plain and simple IO communication was in focus. There is not something programmed like shared a device in PROFINET or multi assemblies in EtherNet/IP for multi master support. All this can be found how to program it in the respective protocol programming manual.
Thx
Armin
RE: netPI RTE 3: access from several comm. masters - tad - June-3rd-2021
Dear Armin,
Thank you very much for your quick and kind response.
I now understand netPI doesn't communicate with several comm. masters at least on Node-RED (the fieldbus node).
Best regards,
RE: netPI RTE 3: access from several comm. masters - Armin@netPI - June-3rd-2021
Yes your understanding is correct. Even if netX51 network controller is able to support this multiple master but the integration in Node-RED configures the netX51 controller in simple IO mode which does not support multiple masters