Industrial

echocollect r/m FAQs

This application note summarizes the possibilities to access data in the Sinumerik 840 D PL. Echocollect supports only the Simatic S7 PLCs officially, not the Sinumerik CNC in general. However, the Sinumerik 840 D PL contains a S7 PLC internally, which memory can be accessed by echocollect. This PLC can be accessed over the X122 connector (MPI PG port, at 187,5 kBaud) only. Only the “DPR” machine memory is accessible with this approach. Unfortunately, the machine vendor usually provides no documentation about the internal data organization in the PLC memory. Therefore some reverse engineering may be necessary. Due to these facts, Softing support cannot assist you in this case. Only the model Sinumerik 840 D PL was tested by our customers, other models of Sinumerik are probably not compatible.

Each PLC connection in the NetCon main window is counted. If the connection is created multiple times, it is counted multiple times as well. E-Mail, OPC-UA, MQTT, OPCpipe, database or FTP connection is exempted from the limit. The connections are bi-directional, i.e. read and write is not calculated separately. It is possible to toggle the PLC connections on and off.

Please refer to the following PDF for a detailed explanation: PLCs are supported by echocollect

You can connect to multiple PLCs (up to 5 or 15 with extension license), multiple data base and OPCpipe connections (up to 4) and single connections to E-Mail Server, OPC-UA Server, MQTT Broker or FTP.

Please refer to the following PDF for a detailed explanation: Configuration of OPC UA > DA Gateway for usage with echocollect

Please refer to the following PDF for a detailed explanation: How to activate additional licenses in echocollect

Yes, you need the data logger license (LRL-YY-14-3002).

The access itself is not limited by the license. However, this license limit on the symbol table is still applicable (10.000 items).

Please refer the following PDF for a detailed explanation: How to Connect an OPC Client to echocollect

echocollect Firmware Down/Upgrade

This Tech-Note describes how to update or downgrade the firmware of echocollect and echochange.

Important:
a. NetCon-Version and echo Firmware-Version should always have the same version number!
b. Gateways with firmware <= 7.02 can’t get updated to the latest firmware!
c. SD and SDHC SD-Cards until 32GB are supported
d. Please install the latest version of NetCon Configuration Software first. The latest version is available at the Softing Data Intelligence website.

Upgrade automatically via NetCon/SD-Card

1. Please make sure that your gateway is connected correctly in the network and start the Softing NetCon Configuration Software. Select “Configuration via TCP/IP”.

2. After a network search, new devices will be shown up with their MAC-Address only, already
configured devices will tell their name, device type and IP-Address and manually added devices
will shown down below, even without network search.
-> Click on the gateway, which should get upgraded and press “ok”.

3.Navigate in the NetCon main menu to Settings -> Update Firmware.

4. Select the Firmware and press “ok”

If you are using the NetCon version 7.11.04 – the firmware version 7.11.04 will be automatically
selected from the NetCon folder. If you want to install newer firmware, choose the INAT.Update file
from another directory. You can request firmware images from the Softing Support Team.

5. At this step, the echo gateway shows the current and the selected firmware. An update is always
possible. There are two options now to update the Firmware.

a. With SD-Card: The update via SD-Card is recommended, because in this case, all the files
    were sent to the gateway and a reboot is forced to install the firmware afterwards.

b. Without SD-Card: If you choose the update via NetCon, the gateway forces multiple reboots
    and if the network connection is not stable, the firmware update aborts or can’t get installed
    correctly. If you don’t have a SD-Card continue with step 7.

6. After the files are copied to the SD-Card, the NetCon prompts to reboot the gateway. There will
be no finish message – you will see that the echocollect is “online” again in NetCon after update.

7. If there is no SD-Card available, the NetCon transfers and installs the several files step by step. A
progress bar is showing the state of the update. This will take at least 10 minutes.

8. After the update was finished, a success message will appear from NetCon.

9. In case of an older firmware version, the NetCon won’t accept the firmware. In this case, a
manually update via SD-Card is necessary -> see next chapter.

Up/Downgrade manually via SD-Card

Via SD-Card are up- and downgrades to any firmware possible. The echo gateway checks if the
firmware on SD-Card is different to the firmware in the flash and if this is different, the one from the
SD-Card is installed.

1. Put an empty SD-Card into your PC and extract the files from softing_firmware.zip to the root
directory. All the files in the screenshot are needed.
Hint: Don’t extract the .tgz files!

2. Put the SD-Card back into the echo gateway and disconnect it from the power. Wait some
seconds and then connect it again to the power mains.

3. Wait for at least 5-10 Minutes, and then the echo gateway should finish the firmware up- or
downgrade.

Check the firmware versions

1. To check the installed firmware version, navigate via NetCon to Help -> Versions and see at the
version number “Version Summary”.

 

 

This occurs, if your network is not correctly configured. This is usually caused by the wrong default route or net mask configuration. In this case, the connection over H1 could help. Moreover, be sure, that only one Ethernet interface is active on your PC. If, e.g., your wireless adapter is switched on, the discovery over Ethernet won’t work due to the Windows internal limitations. The used ports for discovery are 997 and 982, please be sure that they aren’t blocked via firewall.

The NetCon is tested with the following Windows version:
Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2016.

Custom hardened operating system based on Linux Kernel

The name of the connection is limited to 30 chars. For usernamepassword are maximum each 16 characters allowed. The available special characters belong to ASCII-Code, others may are not supported.

The S&F queue for MQTT is unlimited (except the size of the sd-card). The echo buffers in the ram, and after it collects a bunch of messages, they were copied to the sd-card. To use the S&F feature, QoS 1 or QoS 2 must be used.

SD: from 8 MB till 2 GB
SDHC: from 4 GB till 32 GB
(SDXC is not supported)

When enabled, the oldest data will be rewritten by the latest, in a circular buffer manner.

These databases are tested regularly by our QS department for compatibility with echocollect. Other versions might be compatible as well, but they were not fully tested.

Data Base Version
Oracle
  • V10
  • V11
  • V11.2 XE
DB2
  • V10.1
  • V9.5
  • V9.75
MsSQL
  • 2005
SYBASE
  • ASE 15_0
MySQL
  • 5.5

 

We support with all Softing gateways (echocollect, uaGate, edgeGate) the Microsoft Azure Cloud, Amazon AWS Cloud, IBM Bluemix Cloud and other cloud providers, which are using MQTT for telemetry data.

Serial Number Decode
yywwnnnnnnxxxx

yy = production year (two-digits)

 
ww = week number (two-digits)

 
nnnnnn = counting-up number (6 digits)

 
xxxx= Variante = the last 4 digits of the order number

 

This is a standard component, produced by Phoenix, ID: MC 1,5/2-STF-3,5

At the moment no Softing gateway echo-seriesdataFEED-series supports Alarms and Events (AE).

At the moment no Softing gateway echo-seriesdataFEED-series supports Historical Access (HA).

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(865) 251-5244
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