13.2 Modbus Master

Modbus communication contains a single Master and may include more than 1, but not more than 247 devices. To gather data from peripheral devices, the master device requests a cluster of slave devices for data. If any device understands that this message is addressed to it, it will reply with data. As no timestamp is sent along with data, having recent data requires frequent polling. WCC Lite can be configured to acquire data periodically in custom-defined intervals.

Configuring datapoints

Modbus Master in WCC Lite has to be configured via Excel. This configuration contains two Excel sheets where parameters have to be filled in - Devices and Signals

Modbus Master parameters for the Devices tab

Parameter	Type	Description	Required		Default Value (when not specified)	Range
			TCP	RTU/ASCII		Min	Max
name	string	User-friendly name for a device	Yes	Yes
description	string	Description of a device	No	No
device_alias	string	Alphanumeric string to identify a device	Yes	Yes
enable	boolean	Enabling/disabling of a device	No	No	1	0	1
protocol	string	Protocol to be used	Yes	Yes		Modbus RTU, Modbus TCP
ip	string	The IP address of the TCP slave device	Yes	-
port	integer	TCP communication port	Yes	-	502
bind_address	string	The IP address of the network adapter used to connect to the slave device (Default: ”0.0.0.0”)	No	No	0.0.0.0
id	integer	Modbus Slave ID	Yes	Yes
mode	string	Choosing between RTU (”rtu”), ASCII (”ascii”) and TCP(”tcp”) modes. ASCII is the same as RTU, but with ASCII symbols.	No	No	TCP (for TCP) RTU (for Serial)	rtu, ascii, tcp
timeout_ms	integer	Response timeout in milliseconds	Yes	Yes	10000
device	string	Communication port (”PORT1”/”PORT2”)	-	Yes		PORT1	PORT2
baudrate	integer	Communication speed, baud/s	-	Yes	9600	300, 600, 1200, 2400, 4800, 9600, 19200, 38400, 57600, 115200
databits	integer	Data bit count for communication	-	Yes	8	6	9
stopbits	integer	Stop bit count for communication	-	Yes	1	1	2
parity	string	Communication parity option	-	Yes	none	none, even, odd
flowcontrol	string	Number of requests, before the link is considered lost (device status signals are changed) and reconnect attempt will be issued	-	Yes	none	none
scan_rate_ms	integer	If provided and positive - all jobs will have similar scan rates - all reads and writes will be executed within this timeframe (parameter scan_rate_ms in the Signals tab will be ignored)	Yes	Yes	300
retry_count	integer	Number of requests, before the link is considered lost (device status signals are changed) and reconnect attempt will be issued	No	No	3
serial_delay	integer	RS485 delay between read and write operations in milliseconds	-	Yes	50
keep_alive_timeout	integer	Time interval for sending a keep-alive packet (in milliseconds)	No	No	60
modbus_multi_write	boolean	Use 15/16 functions to write 1 register/coil (Default: 0)	No	No	0	0	1
comm_restart_delay	integer	Time delay between disconnecting from the slave device and restarting the connection (in milliseconds) (Default: 500)	No	-	500

Modbus Master parameters for the Signals tab

Parameter	Type	Description	Required		Default Value (when not specified)	Range
			TCP	RTU/ASCII		Min	Max
signal_name	string	User-friendly signal name	Yes	Yes
device_alias	string	Alphanumeric string to identify a device	Yes	Yes
signal_alias	string	Unique alphanumeric name of the signal to be Yes used	Yes	Yes
enable	boolean	Enabling/disabling of an individual signal	No	No	1	0	1
job_todo	string	Request to send according to Modbus specification without device address and checksum. This field can be identical on several tags to fetch them in a single request	Yes	Yes
tag_job_todo	string	Similar format to the job_todo field. Address and length must be a subset of the job field. Defines the individual tag’s register(s) or coil(s). Can be described in HEX or DEC formats	Yes	Yes
number_type	string	Type of a number (FLOAT, DOUBLE, DIGITAL, etc.)	Yes	Yes
log	integer	If the log parameter is 1, the signal will be visible in the events log tab, if 0, signals will not be logged.	No	No	0
pulse_short_time_ms	integer	The time interval for short output pulse to stay active	No	No	0
pulse_long_time_ms	integer	The time interval for a long output pulse to stay active	No	No	0
periodic_update_ms	integer	Signal value will be published periodically according to the value set.	No	No

Note: If the number type is more than 16 bits (this means FLOAT, SIGNED32, DOUBLE etc.), modbus multiwrite should be enabled (1).

Device status signals

Modbus Master has an additional signal which can be configured to show communication status. It is used to indicate if the slave device has disconnected from the master (WCC Lite). To configure such signal for Modbus protocol, job_todo and tag_job_todo fields with string values are required. For Modbus master required parameters for the status signal will be signal_name device_alias, signal_alias, number_type,  job_todo and tag_job_todo. Job_todo value must be device_status and for tag_job_todo there are 4 variations: communication_status, device_running, device_error, uknown_error. Each signal has 4 possible values and is based on the same logic. If the signal returns the value of 0, it means an unknown error has appeared, 1 – device or protocol connection is on and working properly, 2 – device is off or protocol is disconnected, 3 – error or service is down.

Different device vendors can have different implementations of a Modbus protocol stack. A register table can be one of the primary differences. WCC Lite Modbus Master transmits the most significant word (byte) first, however, devices from some vendors might require transmitting the least significant word (byte) first. If that is the case, make sure to switch bytes as needed. To find out more about setting a correct number format, one should consult a section number_type.

Modbus job or tag (as a task to be completed) can be built in two different formats - the user can select a more convenient way for him:

• hexadecimal format with every single byte separated by a | symbol. Device address, bytes containing output information and CRC (LRC) bytes should be excluded from the message;
• decimal format containing function number, first address and address count, separated by ; symbol. All other information should be excluded from the message;

job_todo can group several tag_job_todo’s. That way one Modbus message can be used to extract several tags. Grouping is accomplished dynamically meaning that if several identical jobs are found, their tags are grouped automatically.

Debugging a Modbus Master application

If the configuration for Modbus Master is set up, a handler for the protocol will start automatically. If the configuration is missing or contains errors, the protocol will not start. It is done intentionally to decrease unnecessary memory usage.

Modbus Master command line debugging options

modbus-master 

-h [ –help ] Display help information 
-V [ –version ] Show version
-d<debug level> Set debugging level 
-c [ –config ] Config path
-r [ –raw ] Show raw telegram data
-f [ –frame ] Show frame data
-s [ –serial ] Show serial port data 
–tcp Show tcp packets
–ascii Show ASCII messages
–rtu Show RTU messages
-e [ –redis ] Show redis debug information 
-R [ –readyfile ] Ready notification file

If Modbus Master does not work properly (e.g. no communication between devices, data is corrupted, etc.), a user can launch a debug session from the command line interface and find out why the link is not functioning properly. To launch a debugging session, a user should stop the Modbus-master process and run the Modbus-master command with respective flags as shown above.