Publication 20D-UM002C-EN-P - November 2003
6-20 Communicating with Devices on an EtherNet/IP Link
Producing and
Consuming Data
The DriveLogix controller supports the ability to produce (broadcast) and
consume (receive) system-shared tags over an EtherNet/IP link. Produced and
consumed data is accessible by multiple controllers over an Ethernet network.
The controller sends or receives data at a predetermined RPI rate.
Produced and consumed tags must be controller-scoped tags of DINT or
REAL data type, or in an array or structure.
The producer and consumer must be configured correctly for the specified
data to be shared. A produced tag in the producer must be specified exactly the
same as a consumed tag in the consumer.
If any produced/consumed tag between a producer and consumer is not
specified correctly, none of the produced/consumed tags for that producer
and consumer will be transferred. For example, if a DriveLogix controller is
consuming three tags that another DriveLogix controller consumes but the
first tag is specified incorrectly, none of the tags are transferred to the
consuming DriveLogix controller.
However, one consumer failing to access shared data does not affect other
consumers accessing the same data. For example, if the producing DriveLogix
controller from the previous example also produced tags for other consuming
controllers but did so correctly, those tags are still transferred to the additional
consuming controllers.
Maximum number of produced and consumed tags
The maximum number of produced/consumed tags that you can configure
depends on the connection limits of the communication device that transfers
the produced/consumed data.
Each produced tag uses one connection for the tag and the first configured
consumer of the tag. Each consumer thereafter uses an additional connection.
Tag type: Description: Specify:
produced These are tags that the controller
produced for other controllers to consume.
• Enabled for producing
• How many consumers allowed
consumed These are tags whose values are produced
by another controller.
• Controller name that owns the tag that the local controller
wants to consume
• Tag name or instance that the controller wants to consume
• Data type of the tag to consume
• Update interval of how often the local controller consumes
the tag
