Table of Contents

Modbus TCP/IP

Content → Command Stations → Protocols

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Introduction

The Siemens LOGO! devices do support Modbus over TCP/IP. Those devices are helpful in case 230VAC must be switched in context of the model railroad.

The Modbus protocol is very straight forward and therefor easy to implement.
Serial Modbus devices can be connected by a gateway.

Modbus has become a de facto standard communication protocol and is now a commonly available means of connecting industrial electronic devices.

Setup General



IP

The IP prefix. If not set, the IP of the Rocrail server will be used.

Port

The default Modbus registered port number 502 will be used in case of zero.

Poll options

Inputs

Poll discrete inputs.

Holdings

Poll holding registers.

Registers

Poll analog registers.

Coils

Poll coil output state.

Sleep

Pause in ms between the polling requests.


Setup Devices


A device must be added if polling is required to specify which type and rage.

Sub IP

The last part of the device its IP address.

Unit-ID

Unit-ID connected to the slave.
Range in Rocrail is 0…15.

Input/Coil range

Both ranges are automatically adjusted to multiples of 8.

Ranges

If a range is set from zero to zero the polling for that type is disabled.


Addressing

The addressing is based on the IP address of the Rocrail server.
If the server hast IP address 192.168.0.120, the base IP prefix is 192.168.0.
The Rocrail object Bus/Node-ID will be used as IP suffix, for example if an output bus is 44, the IP address will be 192.168.0.44.
Slaves are addressed by the Object port number.

Sensor

Modbus Rocrail
SubIP NodeID
Module High part of address
Address Low part of address

Rocrail sensor address = Module * 256 + Address

Block Interface

The TrackDriver is addressed as follows:

Modbus Rocrail
SubIP NodeID
Module Port
Register address Address

The 16bit register value range is 0…1000.
The direction is defined by bit 15.


Coils

A coil is a read/write output in the Modbus context, and is mapped to a Rocrail output/switch object.
The output bus is the IP suffix, and the address is the coil address.


Polling

Modbus inputs must be polled because of its master/slave architecture. (Originally RS485. Also new projects are based on RS485 like BiDiB where the GBMBoost master will do the polling.)
If a Rocrail sensor is defined for this Interface ID, the eight bit module range, 8, will be requested for this IP suffix at a fixed interval.
To activate polling the digint attribute fbpoll must be set to true. The psleep attribute is used for the polling interval in ms.

Discrete Inputs

Input registers are reported as sensor default type.

Coils

Coiuls are reported as output field events.

Input Registers

Input registers are reported as sensor register type.

Holding Registers

Holding registers are reported as sensor register type.

Service

If the port is set > 1024, a Modbus service will be started; Rocrail will accept Modbus request on this port.
Supported requests:

  1. Write Single Coil, this will be evaluated as an output field event.

For all other requests an exception response will be send back.


PLC Address Types

Mnemonic Type Size Modbus Rocrail
I Digital Input bit Discrete Input Sensor
Q Digital Output bit Coil Output/Switch
M Memory bit Coil Read Sensor, Write Output
AI Analog Input word Register Sensor register type
AQ Analog Output word Register Output analog port type
AM Memory word Holding Register Sensor register type


Public Functions