2101 Field Wizard
Section 4 Modbus Protocol
| Sections 4.1 through 4.5 give an overview of the basic capabilities |
| and operation of Modbus protocol as it applies to Isco 2100 Series |
| flow modules. |
| For a Glossary of Terms and Common Acronyms, see sections 4.4 |
| and 4.5. |
| For Modbus technical specifications, turn to section 4.6. |
4.1 Introduction | Modbus is a simple command/response mechanism to read from |
| and write to specific memory locations called registers. A register |
| is a holding place for a piece of digital information within the |
| equipment. There are three standard protocols for Modbus: |
| Modbus RTU, Modbus TCP/IP, and Modbus ASCII. The Isco 2100 |
| Series devices use Modbus ASCII protocol, the method discussed |
| in this manual. Modbus ASCII has more flexible communication |
| timing requirements. Modbus communication for the Isco 2100 |
| Series provides a standard protocol that can be used to retrieve |
| |
| or multiple sites, over a wide area. The data can be sent to a |
| central computer for display, data collection, or process control. |
| Modbus implementation is independent of Flowlink and cannot |
| alter the |
| Modbus cannot be used to retrieve historical data from a |
| module’s memory. |
| Due to the wide variety of configurations that can be made with |
| Modbus, it is impossible to cover every usable application. This |
| section will discuss the overall capabilities and operation of |
| Modbus. |
4.2 Operation | There are many standard, third party Modbus drivers and OPC |
| servers that may be used to link a remote Modbus device, such as |
| a 2100 Series module, to SCADA or process control software, |
| such as Wonderware™ or Intellution™. The OPC server commu- |
| nicates with the remote instrumentation and accesses registers. |
| The definition of what information is contained and where (the |
| register number, or address) is decided by the manufacturer |
| (Teledyne Isco). |
| In a 2100 module, the registers hold, but are not limited to, the |
| current |
| voltage, temperature, and total flow readings, stored in specified |
| register locations. A list of the 2100 register addresses, and what |
| parameters are held where, is available in section 4.6. |