Created Date: January 08,2013

Created by: uman

I have an application that requires wireless communication between a microcontroller and a PLC. Research indicates that a ZigBee could provide the communication link, but I am not sure how the PLC would communicate with the Zigbee.

The system would deploy/retrieve a sensor probe into a tank of liquid and wirelessly transfer the data to the PLC after the cycle. The probe sensor would incorporate an embedded microcontroller and wireless communication capability. I expect a minimum of 400 data points per cycle.

I am not sure how to approach this microcontroller/PLC communication and ask for any help or direction.

Jeff in Florida

Created Date: January 09,2013

Created by: ljbeng

Go to www.sparkfun.com , get an Arduino with an xbee Sheild. You can then get familiar with the Arduino. In order to get the data from the Arduino to the plc, you will then want to learn how to send serial data to the plc as a modbus master. From other threads here, you can read about the modbus drivers for the Arduino. You could also just write your own because it sounds like you may just be writing data from the remote to the plc and once you know where that data is going (vmemory), the serial data structure of the modbus string will not change much and you can just keep sending the data over and over.