Mitsubishi FX3 to eWon flexy

Hey Guys!

I just want to make sure I’m fully understanding the requirements to serially connect an FX3 to a Flexy.

Communication can be via RS-422 and RS-485 (or RS-232 with a converter cable). The customer will need to create VCOM on the eWon itself and then use eVCOM to create and use a virtual communications port on their computer.

Is this all there is to it for linking the computer to the eWon? I’m assuming at this point the alarming and data logging are also possible as well?

I’m looking at the “Remote Access for Mitsubishi FX- and Q-Series PLCs” guide.

EDIT: I the eWon website also mentions that with firmware 7.0 and above that the FX3U can be polled over ethernet? Is this possible via routing? What is required to accomplish this?

@nickTriPhase1

That is correct. The documentation for serial communications pretty accurately depict what needs to be done to communicate via serial to the PLC. Typically the communications would us RS422 though using the SC-09 Mitsubishi converter, you could techincally set it up for RS232 as well.

Once you have the communications set up, you are correct in that you can poll data and alarms as well. It is important to note however that because you are polling and doing eVCOM, when a user makes an EVCOM connection to the PLC, the polling will temporarily stop for the duration of the communication session.

Finally, that is correct, after firmware 7.0 you do have the ability to poll not only the FX3U but also the FX3GE over Ethernet. You would use the MELSEC IOServer to complete this. The generalized setup would be:

NOTE: This is only for Ethernet polling. Serial polling would use MITSUFX

Thanks @jseanor,

Is there a difference in setting up the communication through the MITSUFX IOServer vs the path “Configuration → System Setup → General → Net Services →VCOM ?”

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@nickTriPhase1

Yes those are very different paths. You would definitely need to set up the VCOM settings as VCOM doesn’t drive down into the IOServer settings for comms.

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And so MitsuFX is only for polling purposes. It sounds like all FX PLCs be polled using the MitsuFX IOServer, but only the FX3U and the FX3GE can be polled over ethernet?

@nickTriPhase1

To an extent that is correct but over Ethernet you would need to poll over Melsec not MitsuFX.

This is just to augment what has already been said. I successfully setup an eWon Flexy with a Mitsubishi FX3U through ENET and I wanted to let everyone know how we did it, through a little trial and error. We are still in development and testing phase, but were able to get it to read data consistently. Few things to note:

  1. we used the ENET card and not serial coms

  2. we found issues with X & Y & some others not consistently giving the data across and we just ended up bypassing this issue as we were in a hurry. the bypass was to just copy that tag data to D registers. The eWon read those like a champ and had no issue. (issue was that the lowest X or Y would read X0 or Y0, but any above that, it wouldn’t read changes in those…it would make connection but not read changes)

  3. We tested both with a switch in-between AND a crossover cable and both worked. I know it should have worked, but sometimes this stuff just doesn’t; however this did work with a crossover cable.

How we programmed eWon:.

to make it simple, we left the eWon on 10.0.0.53 in our scenario. We are an OEM skid builder and didn’t have a set IP scheme before, so we stuck with this for simplicity.

IO Server Config: MELSEC - (FX3UCPU,TCP,10.0.0.1,5001) ip of our plc is 10.0.0.1. That was set in Topic A with enable checked and a poll rate of 1000ms which was fast enough for us. (NOTE: this 1000 ms doesn’t catch momentary switches like a start, so you have to program in a latch 2 second bit or something in your plc to catch momentary switch presses)

Tag Setup: I/O Server, MELSEC, Topic A, address (we used all D’s as they read better)

PLC Setup:

  1. I’m an AB programmer, so I was with someone else doing the Mitsubishi, but we added the card and under the FX Parameter, tab PLC SYSTEM (2) we had to change “CH1” to unchecked on the box labeled “Operate Communication String”

  2. Under same window, Right hand tab “ETHERNET” we selected Channel: CH1 and put in the IP of 10.0.0.1 / 255.255.255.0 / Gateway: 10.0.0.53. Use eWon IP address as the gateway address here.

  3. after that is saved, click “Open Settings” On number 1 chose: TCP / MC Protocol & 5001 as Host Station Port Number.

once that was set, all comms came up and we were in business. I’ll update this post again once I have the communication to the PLC via WAN for programming purposes, not just reading. Hope you guys have to spend less time now than I did working on this!!

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which software are you using to setup the PLC?