Hi everyone,
I would like to use the B&R RFID reader near a T80 panel, which will communicate with an APC3200 located in an electrical cabinet more than 10 meters away.
Is it possible for the APC3200 to “read” the T80’s USB ports (using AS6)?
Has anyone had similar experiences?
Do you have any other suggestions for possible solutions, other than a USB cable?
Thank you
Hello,
It’s possible to share T80’s USB ports via CIFS. Then you can use Devlink FUB with the CIFS protocol. However, I don’t know if the reader can be handled in such configuration.
Hi,
unfortunately, I think that’s not possible.
From my understanding, the CIFS share is a file system share only - means, that you’re able to access data from a file storage system like USB stick.
But the transponder systems are working as a USB-RS232 devices. Directly connected to a PLC USB port, you can access them using AsUSB + DvFrame libraries.
But to access them remotely would mean, that you need some bidirctional “middleware” accessing the physical usb port + “moving” the data from one protocol to another, for example “copy the data from USB into a TCP socket and send it to a tcp remote device, and vice versa”.
As I know, the T-Panel hardware / operating system does not have such a functionality.
I know that such converters “USB to TCPIP” are out there in market as external hardware, and I could imagine that it would be possible to access a transponder reader remotely via a ethernet connection, using such a device + using a own AsTCP implementation for the network communication (including the serial command protocol used for communicate with RFID reader itself).
But this is just some old knowledge from my side, as I don’t have any actual practical experience which such 3rd party devices (I did something like that many years ago with a RS232 device but not RS232-USB, and with a 3rd Party consumer device → so I don’t think this would be the right setup for a concrete advice what hardware to try).
Not to forget, you would be able to realize exactly such a converter hardware by using a small B&R PLC with usb + ethernet (like X20CP0410) + some software effort → but such a PLC is also designed for cabinet mounting, so I’ve no idea if this could be a solution, I just wanted to mention it for the sake of completeness.
Best regards!
Hi Simone,
Unfortunately, it is not possible for the APC3200 to access the T80’s USB ports directly via Automation Runtime (AS6). The AsUSB + DVFrame libraries, which are required for B&R RFID transponder readers (5E9000.29, 5E9010.29, TWN4, etc.), only work when the USB device is physically connected to the CPU running AR. The T80 runs its own OS, its USB ports are not accessible by the APC3200’s AR.
I think the easiset workaround is USB cable extender and connect reader directly to APC3200.
Or any other idea from B&R Community?
Jaroslav