Importing CLICK PLC to Studio5000 Using EDS File: EtherNet/IP Field I/O from AutomationDirect

The CLICK PLC is a versatile low-cost PLC control system and now that it has added the EtherNET/IP protocol, you can integrate this affordable control system with your ControlLogix or CompactLogix system, allowing you to share data, or even better, replace your expensive EtherNet/IP distributed field I/O. First, let's discuss how the I/O is addressed in the CLICK. If we go into the system configuration, here you can see all the I/O assignment based upon the module. For the CPU inputs, there's X1 through how every many inputs are on that CPU. Same for the outputs. Now, module 1, be it either input or output, the addressing will start at 101. So, if this is an input module, it will start at X101. If it is an output, it will start at Y101. Module 2 goes to 200, and so forth. An easy way to catch all the input and output assignments is by using the XD or YD address registers. Now, they are 32 bit registers, so for example, X1, which is input 1 on the CPU, will be mapped to bit 0 of XD0. X2 is then mapped to bit 1 of the XD0. So, XDO will have all the inputs on the CPU. XD1 will have all the inputs for module 1. XD2 will have all the inputs for module 2, and so forth. And then the same thing for the outputs. So, if we are looking at this as a field distributed I/O, if we transmit all the XD addresses and all the YD addresses, this will give you all of your input and output assignments. Now, if we are looking at analog assignments, both inputs and outputs are assigned to DF addresses. In the system I have here, I have a collection of both input and output modules. To make this straight forward, I will share all the XD addressing, all the YD addressing and since my analog inputs are on DF1- DF4 and my analog outputs are on DF5-DF6, I am going to share DF1-DF6, plus add in DF7 and DF8, just in case I need to share some extra data later. Now that we have gone over the addressing, just go here to the navigation pane under function and select here. Enable the CLICK as an EtherNet/IP adapter. Here, you can select if the CLICK will hold the last state or clear, if there is a loss of communication. Input is what is used to read from the CLICK PLC to your Ethernet/IP controller. Output is what is written to the CLICK by your EtheNet/IP controller. I am going to add all of the possible input to the CLICK by adding XD0-XD8. Then add all of my analog inputs by placing DF1-DF4. Let's move over to the output word. I will add all of the possible outputs by placing YD0-YD8. And my analog outputs will be DF5-DF8. Now that we have our block setup, select down here to export the EDS file. This will make adding the CLICK quick to your Rs5000 project. Now, close this out, and let's place an end statement on the top rung. Now, let's write this project to the CLICK CPU. Open up your Rs5000 project, go to tools, then select the EDS file installation tool. This will bring up a wizard that will validate our EDS file. Hit next, select to register an EDS file. Hit next. Now, let's browse for the EDS file we created from our CLICK software. Hit next. This screen will let you know that the EDS file verified correctly. Select next. Hit next. Select next and then finish. Now your EDS file is registered to your Rs5000 software. Now we need to add the device to the PLC network. Right Click here on Ethernet network and then select add a new module. To make it easier to find your CLICK device, just type in CLICK. And right here is the device we added. Now you will need to enter the IP address of the CLICK. Give this new module a name and realize that this name will become the prefix for all your tags later. Select ok. Now you can see your CLICK in your ethernet network. That completes the configuration, so let's go ahead and download this to the controller and test all of our tags. Let's go into our tag database. And here you can see the tags for the CLICK. These are the tags for the output word and these are the tags for the input word. Now, let's verify that our tags are working correctly. I am going to do this by cycling some tags. So, select here on the monitor tags tab. Drill down until we see the bit of word of our first data word. Now, I am going to cycle on X2-X5 and they turned on correctly. Nice quick and clean setup. With the prices point of CLICK, this is a great way for you to save some money on your distributed field I/O. Just another way that CLICK makes advanced simple. If you have any questions on this setup, please feel free to comment below or call into our free technical support department. Select here to see more videos on the CLICK platform and make sure to select here to subscribe to our YouTube channel for more upcoming videos and solutions.