Wireless Modbus TCP/IP and Raw Socket Product Development

[onyx18]

Hello Everyone-

I am preparing to add communications to our relatively simple hardwired industrial products. I am more experienced integrating products that already have these communications than in developing the communications, so I am quite interested in any feedback the group might offer. I have looked through the forum and found nothing directly on topic.

The task is to add Modbus TCP/IP and Raw Socket connectivity to our products via wireless ethernet (from a vendor with appropriate US/EU FCC type approvals). This allows products to connect to PLC driven machinery via the standard Modbus Protocol (established, simple protocol widely used in controls engineering). Raw Socket Comms allows me to produce an API that uses ASCII-over-ethernet get/set type commands for PC based machinery. The product will support both protocols concurrently over different ports, potentially with multiple connecting clients.

At the product level, not much is going on- basically it involves activating some discrete circuits (1-9 total) and monitoring their status.

A good solution appears to be a Microchip PIC MCU with the Roving Networks RN-171 acting basically as a Ethernet-to-Serial Converter. I'd like to use PBPro instead of C, but either ok. It appears that the RN-171 does most all the heavy lifting. I am assuming that multiple clients can be concurrently connected and that the RN-171 manages the connection number and status when receiving and sending out messages. Is this accurate? I've been researching this looking for pitfalls. Before I buy a development board, upgrade my PBPro and get into this full force, I am very interested to hear any relevant experience/recommendations that people in the forum might be willing to share.

Thanks for your time and consideration-

Lee

[onyx18]

FYI, no responses to date. called Roving Networks. They were quite helpful. Currently, there is no ethernet connection number or anything passed with the data via serial to the mcu. it's basically structured to support a single connection. Modbus TCP wireless has been done by others successfully to date.