Productivity PLC: Remote I/O Integration of the Durapulse GS4 VFD from AutomationDirect

Productivity has now added Remote I/O integration of the GS4 Variable frequency drives in to the PLC line. This allows streamlining of the connection between the PLC and the Drive and makes controlling the drive part of the PLC project. To start the Remote I/O integration of the drive, you must have installed the Modbus TCP communication option card. When you install this card, you will need to update the firmware on the GS4 Drive and also on the Modbus TCP communication card. Once you have that complete, power up the drive and let?s verify that the Modbus TCP Comm card is available on the drive. Go to parameter P9.44 and it should read 4 for the Modbus TCP Comm module. Next, we need to setup the IP address of the Drive. The limiting factor, on the IP address, is the last octet, and that has to be between 1 and 99 and be unique of any other device on this network. Now, we need to write this IP address to the comm module, by going to parameter P9.64 and setting that to 2. Now, we need to set up the drive so that it can be controlled via the comm card. There are 2 parameters involved in this, P3.00 and P4.00. P3.00 is about controlling the drive?s Run/Stop circuit and P4.00 is about controlling the speed. Now, when you go into P3.00 you will need to select either option 5 or 6 and this depends upon if you want the Keypad stop enabled or not. Now, I want the keypad stop enabled, for my project, so I am going to select 5. For 4.00, you will need to select 4. Now, let?s verify our steps, before we continue. We installed the Modbus TCP Comm module. We updated the firmware to the Drive. We updated the Firmware on the Comm Module. We entered the IP address for the Comm module. We wrote the IP address into the Comm module. And then we configured the Drive to be controlled through the Comm module Now, that completes the drive setup so let?s move on to the Productivity setup. You must have at least Programming software version 3.4, or higher, and have loaded a 3.4, or higher, project to your CPU. Then update the firmware on the CPU to the latest version. Connect the GS4 to the Remote network port on the Productivity. Now, to begin the discovery of the GS4 into the productivity, go into your hardware configuration. Select the GS Drives tab. Now, you can add this drive manually or you can select to add it automatically. I will demonstrate the automatic way. With your Productivity CPU in Stop, select this button up here. This will begin the autodiscovery process which should take 30 seconds or so. Once complete you should see a message like this, indicating that the drive was found and give you the drive number. Notice that the drive number is equal to the last octet of the drive?s IP address. Select yes and now you will see your drive listed here. Now that you have, your drive setup to be a Remote IO slave, you can select it and see the all of the drive parameters. Now, this drive configuration becomes part of your PLC Project. And if you go into Tools and then options and then make sure that this option is checked. Now when you transfer your project to your PLCs, the GS drive configuration is also transferred to the drives, that you have set up here. That completes the hardware configuration. Now, let?s transfer this project to the CPU. To control the drive, there are two instructions. There is the GS Write instruction and the GS Read instruction. Let?s start with the GS Write instruction. This instruction can be broken down to 3 main parts; communication and status flags, Auto Write Section and Manual Write section. Now, this part I will handle by creating a Structure and as you can see, when I create this structure, it also created tags for the Run and Jog Frequency, in the auto write portion. Also, in this auto write portion, you can select which drive you are controlling and how fast the drive is being written to. This down here is the manual write portion. There is two parts here. There is the run mode and the stop mode. There are some parameters that can be changed while the drive is in Run and then there are some that can only be changed while the drive is in Stop. If we look at the instruction you will see 4 input rungs. If this rung is enabled, it will place the drive into Run and set the frequency of the drive to the value of this tag. If this rung is enabled and the Run rung is not enabled, then the drive will be placed into jog at the frequency of this tag. These two rungs handle how the Run mode data and the Stop mode data is updated. Noticed that both of them have these arrows, which indicate that you need an off to on transition for them to update. If we look back in the instruction, all the parameters are separated into categories. If you need to write to any of these, you will need to place a tag for that parameter. For this example, I am going to put a tag to control the direction of the Drive and to reset any faults that may occur. To finalize the instruction, select ok and then you will be asked to complete the creation of the tags for this structure. Now, I am going to create enable bits for each of the input rungs. Now, that we have that setup, write this to the PLC and test out our drive for the first time. To just run the drive, you will only need the GS write instruction. Right click on the rung and select to create a Data view Tab. Open up Data View and then select that tab. I will place the Drive in Run by enabling this bit and then Give the Drive a Run Frequency. My drive ran up to the frequency, just fine and I have no errors in the communication flags. The GS Read instruction pretty much works the same way. There are Communication Flags. The Auto read portion and then the manual Read portion. Like with the GS Write instruction the Manual read will require an off to on transition for these values to update in the drive. If you have any question on this or any other features, please feel free to comment below or call into our award-winning Tech Support team. Click here to see more videos on the Productivity line and click here to subscribe to our YouTube channel for upcoming products and solutions.