Version 1.0, August 31, 2001, Copyright, Hugh Jack 1993-2001

31.7.1 Devicenet

 

· Devicenet is meant as a noise resistant, robust, shop floor network.

 

· The main change that the user will notice is that a rack of a PLC can be broken up and CPU, I/O, etc. are now connected by Devicenet.

 

· Devicenet is an open standard, so components can come from a variety of suppliers.

 

· Based on the CANbus (Controller Area Network) protocol.

 

· Some advantages,

  1. - open system is not tied to a single vendor
  2. - diagnosis of devices is possible
  3. - wiring becomes easier (no long wire runs)
  4. - complex devices are easy to connect
  5. - possibility of using a PC based control package
  6. - multiple controllers can share the net

 

· Basic features

  1. - up to 64 nodes on the network
  2. - lengths of 500m/250m/100m for speeds of 125kbps/250kbps/500kbps respectively
  3. - data packet size of 0-8 bytes
  4. - power and signal in the same cable
  5. - single bus cable
  6. - addressing includes peer-to-peer, multicast, master/slave, polling or change of state
  7. - devices can be added/removed while power is on

 

· Devicenet is a layer 7 - application protocol (Note that CANbus is level 2)

 

· A typical structure for Devicenet is shown below,

 

 

· There are two types of wire used,

  1. Thick trunk - carries up to 8A for power up to 500m
  2. Thin trunk - up to 3A for power up to 100m

 

 

· Power supplies are directly connected to the cable to supply power.

 

· The drop lengths are limited

  1. - total length/speed 156m/78m/39m are 125Kbps/250Kbps/500Kbps respectively
  2. - a single drop is limited to 6m

 

· The wiring can come in a form of end/connectors,

  1. - bare wires
  2. - unsealed screw connector
  3. - sealed mini connector
  4. - sealed micro connector
  5. - vampire taps

 

· Devices may have a red/green status light for the network status.

 

· Devicenet used the CANbus indentifier to specify,

  1. message types (5 bits)
  2. node number (6 bits) up to 64 nodes on the net

 

· On a PLC-5 rack you would need a devicenet interface and could use the instructions below.

 

 

· On a Softlogix PLC the I/O will be copied into blocks of integer memory. These blocks are selected by the user in the setup of the software. Here the inputs are copied into N9 integer memory, and the outputs are set by copying the N10 block of memory back to the outputs.