SIMATIC S7 Plug-in

This plug-in enables direct communication with Siemens's programmable controllers (PLCs) of the SIMATIC S7-1200 and SIMATIC S7-1500. For the communication between the plug-in and the PLC, the SIMATIC S7 communication protocol is used.

Once the plug-in is configured and a connection between the plug-in and the PLC is established, the protocol can be used by both the plug-in and the PLC to transmit commands, results, and further information. The configuration of the SIMATIC S7 plug-in itself can be adjusted in the MERLIC RTE Setup. However, setting up the connection between MERLIC and the PLC requires the PLC engineering software TIA Portal- SIMATIC STEP 7 from Siemens. For more information about the provided SIMATIC S7 plug-in, its configuration, set up, and more, see the topics listed below.

Requirements and Limitations

When using the SIMATIC S7 plug-in, the following requirements and limitations apply:

• Currently, the communication is only supported for Siemens PLCs of the following series:
  • SIMATIC S7-1200
  • SIMATIC S7-1500
• The connected station, that is, the host station, is directly accessed using a static IP.
• Communication with the PLC is using PUT/GET instructions that must be enabled on the PLC side.
• The optimized version of the SIMATIC S7 communication protocol is currently not supported.
• Currently, only data results can be transmitted via the SIMATIC S7 plug-in. Image results are not available.
• Only the following MERLIC data types are supported by Siemens SIMATIC PLCs:
  • BOOL
  • BYTE
  • WORD
  • DWORD
  • SINT
  • INT
  • DINT
  • REAL
  • LREAL
• Strings are currently not supported.

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