Communication with SIMATIC PLC devices by the Siemens company

Simatic PLC communication types

Ethernet communication (protocol S7, PROFINET, IE-Industrial Ethernet):
The S7 protocol is designed for transfering data into SCADA systems via Ethernet. The PROFINET protocol is used for communication between PLCs and IO modules. It is possible to communicate by the S7 protocol via PROFINET connector in the PLC device or in add-on communication modules.
The Ethernet brings many advantages as speed, simple wire infrastructure, multiple stations on a single line, standardization, etc.
This communication type can be used for:

For this communication in the PROMOTIC system can be used:

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PROFIBUS communication:
PROFIBUS is a physical interface that cannot be directzly connected to the PC. The connection is managed by additional PROFIBUS PC card (or other additional HW).

For this communication in the PROMOTIC system can be used:

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MPI communication:
The MPI (MPI-S7) interface is a "derivate" of the PROFIBUS-DP. The communication line is RS485, the transfer rate is preset to 187.5kb/sec. The speed rate can be decreased to 19.2kb/sec and according to the device (CPU300, OP, CP6511) it can be even increased to 12Mb/sec.

For this communication in the PROMOTIC system can be used:

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PPI communication (Simatic S7-200):
The PPI interface is used for the Simatic S7-200 PLCs. It is a serial interface (so no special HW card is needed).

For this communication in the PROMOTIC system can be used:

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Communication by the ASCII protocol:
For the communication with SIMATIC PLC devices that dispose of the ASCII serial communication interface it is necessary to know the description of the ASCII protocol on the SIMATIC side.

For this communication in the PROMOTIC system can be used:

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Communication with Simatic S5:
The communication over the programming PG port on the Simatic S5 is of the point-to-point type (1PC-1Simatic) via the computer's serial port. The transfer rate is 9600 Bd at the most.

There was a PROMOTIC driver PmS5PG for communication via the PG port up to PROMOTIC version Pm 8.3. The driver was removed since version Pm9.0.0. See also: Some communication drivers were removed.

For communication with Simatic S5 it is therefore recommended to use communication converter S5-LAN. This device converts the communication to the RFC 1006 (ISO on TCP) protocol.
For this communication in the PROMOTIC system can be used:
For detailed description of the converter see:

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Communication by protocols 3964R, 3964 or RK512:
These protocols for serial link RS232 support some Simatic PLC devices directly and there is possible to purchase a communication module for these protocols for some PLC's.

For this communication in the PROMOTIC system can be used:

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Communication by protocols SinecH1/SinecL1/SinecL2:
These protocol types are considered very obsolete.

For this communication in the PROMOTIC system can be used:

Description of standard communication options between the PROMOTIC system and SIMATIC PLCs

Communication via the PmS7 PROMOTIC driver:
PmS7 - Driver for communication by the S7-TCP/IP protocol communicates with PLC devices by the S7 protocol (Ethernet). If the PLC is equipped by the PROFINET connector, then the driver can be used (for example S7-1200, ET-200S, some types of S7-300 and S7-400).
PLC devices without the PROFINET connector can be modified in order to enable the PROFINET connectivity, for example.

For easy integration of this driver into the application it is handy to use:

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Communication by OPC server:
Virtually all mentioned communication types can be executed via the OPC server. In the PROMOTIC application the PmaOpcDaClient object is then used - See also Communication by OPC interface. There are many OPC server manufacturers. Below you can fing a short list.