RVNet driver-free in STEP7

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To use the RVNet module without a driver in STEP 7 software, you will need to follow these general steps:

Set PG/PC interface

  1. On the web page, go to the “S7 bus interface parameters” page of RVNet-S7300 set the “STEP7 programming PLC address” parameter (default is 2), and click the “OK” button after modification.
  2. Open the STEP7 programming software, select the menu “Options\Set PG/PC Interface…”, select TCP/IP->(computer network card) in the pop-up dialog box, and press “OK” to exit.

Program upload

  1. Select the menu “PLC\Upload Station to PG…” in the main window of STEP7 software.
  2. Enter the IP address of RVNet-S7300 in the IP address column of the pop-up Select Node Address dialog box.
  3. Click the “View” button to view the PLC type, and click the “OK” button to upload the program.

Program download

STEP7 software will automatically check whether there is an Ethernet communication interface in the current hardware configuration of the S7300 Station when downloading and monitoring. To enable the STEP7 software to route to the RVNet-S7300 via Ethernet, we need to create a new PC Station in the STEP7 project. Proceed as follows:

In the S7300 Station project, set the MPI interface of the CPU to connect to MPI(1). If there is no MPI(1), please create a new MPI network.

Select the top of the STEP7 project, click the right mouse button, and select Insert New Object\SIMATIC PC Station in the pop-up shortcut menu.

Select the newly created PC Station, double-click Configuration to open the configuration dialog box, select SIMATIC PC Station\CP PROFIBUS\CP5611\SW6.0 (any version) in the Catalog on the right, and then drag it to the No. 1 slot of the PC rack on the left, in the pop-up Click the OK button directly in the PROFIBUS interface properties dialog box (do not create a new PROFIBUS network, because we need to set the CP5611 to MPI mode).

Double-click CP5611 in slot 1 of the PC rack, set the interface protocol of CP5611 to MPI in the pop-up properties dialog box, click the Properties button, and select MPI(1) in the pop-up MPI interface properties. Since the addresses on the MPI network cannot be the same, the STEP7 software will automatically provide an MPI address (such as 3) to the CP5611.

Continue to select SIMATIC PC Station\CP Industrial Ethernet\IE General\SW6.2 (any version) in the Catalog on the right, then drag it to slot 2 of the PC rack on the left, and click the New button in the pop-up Ethernet interface properties dialog box. Create a new Ethernet network and set the IP address to the IP address of the RVNet-S7300.

Save and compile the PC Station project, then close the configuration window. The whole configuration process is shown in the figure below.

NetPro after configuration.

After the PC Station is established, you can start to use RVNet-S7300 for program download and monitoring (operate on the S7-300 Station of the STEP7 project, not on the PC Station).

Note:

The newly created PC Station project here only provides the Ethernet to MPI routing function for STEP7 software and has no actual hardware significance. The CP5611 communication card does not need to be installed in the computer, nor does it need to perform any operations on the PC Station.
The IP address of the IE General of the PC Station rack should be the IP address of the RVNet-S7300.
The STEP7 programming station address parameter of RVNet-S7300 should be preset to the MPI station address of the current PLC (default is 2).

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