Modbus Master

Warning

This page describes capabilities only in the development branch. You must checkout the development branch to use these capabilities.

OpenPLC implements a Modbus master (client). A Modbus master is normally used to control a remote device that acts as the slave (server). The Modbus master reads and writes data to the slave, for example, to issue a command to read the remote state.

You can create multiple instances of the Modbus master to communicate with multiple Modbus slaves.

Configuring Modbus Master

To use OpenPLC as a DNP3 outstation, you must:

define PLC addresses in the supported range
define the bound offset and number PLC addresses to bind
define the connection details

This information is defined in the config.ini configuration file in the modbusmaster section.

Binding Modbus Master to PLC Addresses

OpenPLC binds ranges of PLC addresses to Modbus addresses. You define an offset (start address) and number of PLC addresses to bind.

Up to 400 PLC addresses per Modbus table can be bound to the Modbus master. Mapping to a particular Modbus table (for example discrete output coils) is determined based on the data width, direction, and an offset.

Modbus table	PLC Address	Data Size	Access†
Discrete Output Coils	`%IX100.0 - %IX149.7`	8-bit	W
Discrete Input Contacts	`%QX100.0 - %QX149.7`	8 bit	R
Analog Input Registers	`%IW100 - %IW500`	16-bit	R
Analog Output Holding Registers	`%QW100 - %QW500`	16-bit	RW

† Access is defined from the perspective of the Modbus master. That is, the Modbus master can write discrete output coils and read discrete input contacts.

OpenPLC treats bit-bit PLC addresses as opaque 2-byte blocks. It does not interpret elementary data type nor the stored value. You can therefore use any of the 16-bit PLC addresses (WORD, INT, UINT) to Modbus analog registers. Analog output holding registers are read prior to read.

The offset (and size) defines how PLC hierarchical addresses binds to Modbus data addresses. For example, if input_registers_start = 50 and input_registers_size = 10, then %IW100 - %IW110 bind to Modbus data addresses 0x32 to 0x3B (register numbers 30051 to 30050).