Captron Caneo Series Capacitive Switches Part 3: Productivity PLC from AutomationDirect

It’s time for Part 3 of AutomationDirect’s series of videos on Captron’s Caneo capacitive pushbuttons. In the previous videos, we covered deploying these versatile sensor switches right out of the box and also using an IO-Link Device Tool utility to configure them from a connected computer. Find links in the description below to revisit those videos. This demonstration will connect a Caneo 41 series pushbutton to a Productivity 2000 PLC through a Stride Basic IO-Link master. We’ll move quickly through the setup. For a more detailed treatment, see our video series on using IO-Link with a Productivity PLC. There you’ll find a more in-depth guide to the entire process, albeit using IO-Link devices other than the Captron pushbuttons on which we are focused here. Find links to these videos in the description below. AutomationDirect has streamlined the whole process of controlling IO-Link devices with a Productivity PLC by providing a pre-made task library that contains custom tasks for the IO-Link devices we carry. This library is freely available at AutomationDirect.com, on the product page for each of the IO-Link Masters we sell. Links to the downloads are also included in the description below. Download and extract the PSuite Integration folder and you’ll find a few things inside. The PDF contains some of the information we’ll be covering here. The task library itself is this ADTKL file, and there are EDS files for both the Stride Basic and the Murrelektronik Premium IO-Link masters. In the Productivity Suite programming software, find the Task Library folder in the Task Management window. Right-click and Import Group. Navigate to the extracted PSuite Integration folder and the ADTKL file therein. Your Task Library folder will populate with an AutomationDirect IO-Link folder that contains numerous tasks. Drag the IO-Link Data Mapping and the Call Device Code into the Run Every Scan task folder. Productivity Suite lets you know it is automatically creating the tags you’ll need for the added task. Click OK. Find the task for the product you’re using in the folder for that product’s manufacturer. In our case, the series 41 task. Drag this task into the Run When Called task folder. Again, OK to the new tags created. Next, we’ll create a new structure tag where we can access all the elements of the button itself. In the tag database, click Add Tags. Give your button a name. For the demonstration here we’ll just call it Button A. Select User Structure as the Data Type, and in the table that populates find the Captron Series 41 entry. Add and Close. Now we’ll find a Button A structure tag in the tag database. Expand the selection to see all of the individual elements available for monitoring and control from the PLC. We’ll come back to all of this. In the Call Device Code task, we’ll need to replace some of these tags with those specific to our Captron 41 series pushbutton. There’s one more thing we need to do, which is to set up the Ethernet IP side of things to allow communication between the PLC and the IO-Link Master. This is where those EDS files in the PSuite Integration folder come in. In the Application Tools window on the left side of your screen, go to Hardware Config and select the Ethernet/IP tab. On the right side of that tab, you’ll see a list of Ethernet IP Clients for which your Productivity software is already set up. If you do not see a STRIDE IO-Link Basic entry, you’ll need to add it by clicking the Import EDS File button. A Select File to Import window will open. Navigate to the unzipped PSuite Integration folder and select the EDS for the Stride Basic IO-Link Master. You’ll see the Stride Basic IO-Link Master in your EIP list. Expand as needed to display the versions. Drag the latest version to the left side of the Window and a Properties box will open. Check the Use Structure checkbox and drop down to select IO-Link Master.EIP_Device. In the Device Name field, enter “IO-Link Master.” Note that the name must be exact to work with the code we’ve been setting up. Enter the IP address assigned to the IO-Link Master. Keep in mind you’ll need to follow all networking requirements to get all of these elements to talk to each other. Lastly, we need to define the Ethernet IP messages we’ll send back and forth. Click the Add Message button and Add Exclusive Owner. In the Extended Status field, drop-down and select IO-Link Master.EIP_Device_Extended_Status. In the Target to Originator tab Data Array field, select IO-Link Master.Cyclic_Input_Data In the Originator to Target tab Data Array field, select IO-Link Master.Cyclic_Output_Data The Config Data tab can be left as default. Click OK. Save the project and download to the PLC. In a properly configured network, the PLC and the IO-Link Master will now be connected and ready to go. Again, this was a pretty quick and dirty run-through of the setup required. If your head is spinning, or even if you just feel that you may have missed a little something, please take some time to revisit the Productivity – IO-Link videos mentioned earlier for all the details. Once everything is set up and connected, the PLC has access to all of the tags we looked at earlier. Open a Data View window and enter Button A. Expand the entry to see all the available tags. ID and Description can be assigned. These 7 data points are read-only. Starting at Control_LEDs_Active – expand the selection to see the whole array – all of these are read/write. Define the LED brightness and RGB color as well as the desired effect, and then select which of the 16 individual LEDs are to be active. We’re looking at all of this in a Data View right now, but the real potential here is obviously that all of these data points are available in the program’s ladder code. The utility and flexibility of the button is limited only by the ingenuity of the programmer. When the button is actuated, for example, through programming you can change the LED color, brightness, and effect and activate a PLC output. You can program in timers to make it a timed output, or to require the button be pressed for a certain amount of time before the PLC output is turned on. Using the Actuation Strength data, you could set up a threshold for activation, to screen out spurious actuations. Pairing the Captron Caneo capacitive pushbuttons with AutomationDirect’s Productivity PLCs, the possibilities are limitless, and we hope that this video has given you some ideas for your next projects. Click here to explore other IO-Link devices from AutomationDirect. Click here to subscribe to our YouTube channel.