Kampi

So you want to do what exactly? Which type of ET200 you use (exact order number please). And what you gonna do with visual studio? You program your ET200 with Step7 and you want to send data from Visual basic script or something? Please describe exactly what you are going to do!

ng

mark1507

Hello,
CP or no CP should not be the question (for at first). PLC or no PLC is the question...
If you would have given an answer to Kampi's question regarding the order nr we would know if you are maybe talking about an ET200S with integrated CPU.
But, by what I read in your thread I have the feeling that you would like to connect a simple ET200S (without a CPU) to your PC and you would like just access the In/Outputsfrom your application.
I think this is not so easily possible...
A more easily way could be that you run a "Soft-PLC" on the PC. This could be the logical controller coming with the product "WinAC" from Siemens. This controllercan beprogramed with Step7. Also HW-config for this controller including the ET200S can be done with Step7. It could be done on a separat PC with Step7 and then downloaded to the PC with the logical controller. You need to create a minimum S7 program in wich some memory (for example DBs) is written to outputs and where the results from the inputs isstored. In addition you could run an OPC-Server on this PC. With this OPC-Server you can relativ easily acces this memory too. Your application wich is created with visual studio could than communicate with the OPC-Server. There should be some documention in the www how an application can access data from an OPC-Server because this is what OPC was invented for.
If you need a CP or if you can use a network card for the profinet IOis a question of supportby the locical controller. Which "normal" network cards (and also which CPs) can be used with "WinAC" you can find in this documentation on page 125: Link

Regards...