I think this is one of those RTFM moments, but after a couple days searching I'm out of manual to read!

I'm trying to set up a very basic setup - I just want Mach3 to turn on a PLC output (for now).  I'm connecting to the PLC through a USB-Serial cable.

I think I've got things set up OK - on the Test Modbus dialog I can write a "1" to the address of interest (decimal 8192 for output Y001 in this case) and have it turn on, on the PLC.  Great!  I can turn whichever outputs I want on.

But then I'm running into problems actually tweaking the output in Mach3.  I understood that port 0 means Modbus, so if I have Cfg#0 pointing at the address of Y001 (which works in the Test Modbus dialog), with 8 registers set to Ouptut-Coils, then I should be able to set Mach3's outputs to Port 0, pins 0-7.  However I can't get any of those outputs to work. 

What step am I missing?  I've attached my config screens to compensate for my confusing verbiage above.



Thanks!

Hi,

You are using Mach3's Plugin Modbus interface, so you will need to write a Brain(s) to get Mach items, inputs, outputs, etc, into the buffers you have seutup above.

Have a look at this article I wrote on Mach3 and Modbus.

http://www.homanndesigns.com/pdfs/Using_Modbus_with_Mach3.pdf

Cheers,

Peter

Thanks Peter!  I did write a brain and was able to get my system working.  I have a new problem though outlined here:

http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,25393.0.html

if you can help with that one, thanks!  I have my immediate system working by just using a NOP value pass-through from the LED I'm using, but I'd like to understand why the comparison blocks I was using failed.

Rod