How to Connect a Maple Systems PLC to a Maple Systems HMI + PLC Combo Unit

Initializing a new Project

Open up a new project in MapleLogic, select modular ES as the PLC type, and name your project.

Only the Maple Modular PLC with an Ethernet Modbus module can act as a Modbus master over TCP

Configuring the PLC’s IP address

Open up the PLC parameters and go to the “Ethernet” tab, then change your PLC’s IP address to what you’d like. Be sure to take note of this IP address for when we configure the HMI + PLC side. Hit “OK” and save your new IP address.

Create a base project

Next, you’ll want to create a new main scan program in MapleLogic. The PLC project won’t compile or download properly if there isn’t a main scan program.

Configuring the PLC as a Modbus Master

Now we’ll create another PLC program, but set it to the “MODBUS/TCP MASTER” under the “Communication Configuration” section.

Setting the Slave IP address

Now, once in this Modbus Master Program, we’ll add a new device, and point it to our HMC’s IP address.

Choose which Modbus addresses to poll from the server (slave) device

Then we’ll click the “Add” button and add Modbus tags to poll from the server (slave) device.

Connecting to the PLC

We’ll then want to make sure to connect our PLC to the computer with a mini-USB cable. We’ll also want to make sure to set MapleLogic to download via the USB cable like so

I’ll walk through a download using a mini USB cable. You can download to your PLC over Ethernet, but the PLC’s IP address out of the box is 100.100.100.100, so you’ll need to change your PC’s IP address accordingly to make an initial connection to your PLC.

Link + Download + Monitor

Next, you’ll want to press the “Link + Download + Monitor” button and accept all the prompts.

Create a new MAPware-7000 project

To start, we’ll make a new MAPware-7000 project, name it, and select our HMC model.

Build out our Project

Then we’ll want to fill out our HMC project with all of the functionality we need on it.

Assign Tags to Modbus Addresses

Now that we have our project mapped out, we can set some of our MAPware-7000 tags to Modbus addresses. We’ll do this by navigating to the “Tags” database and filling an address into the “Ethernet” column of our project tags that we want to transmit to our PLC.

Navigating to the System Settings on the HMC

Now we’ll set our HMC’s IP address to something in the same subnet as our PLC. We’ll do this by pressing and holding the top-left corner of the HMC to go into the HMC system settings. Then we’ll click the “Network Settings” sidebar item.

Configuring the HMC’s IP Address

In the Network settings, we’ll want to set our HMC to a static IP address, and change our HMC’s IP address and subnet mask to what we desire.

Preparing the Project for Download

Now we’ll go back into our MAPware-7000 project, navigate to “Tools > PC Communication Mode”, select “Ethernet” and change our base IP address to the IP address we just set our HMC to.

Downloading our Project

Now we’ll make sure our HMC is connected and powered on, and click the download button in MAPware-7000. After compiling the project, we’ll make sure the IP address on the download window is correct, and download our project.

If this is your first time downloading to your HMC device, you’ll want to download the “Firmware” to your combo device first.

Create a New Project

On the MapleLogic side, we can create a project with either a Maple Modular PLC or a Maple Micro PLC.

Add a Modbus/RTU Master

Now we’ll add a base scan like before, and add a “Modbus/RTU Master” program as well.

Configure the Modbus/RTU Master

We’ll specify the COM port of our Modbus Master (COM 1 for RS-232), and like before, we’ll hit the “Add” button and configure which addresses our PLC will poll from the server (slave) device.

Configure the Modbus COM port

Now we’ll go into the PLC Parameters of our project, and navigate to the “Ch 1” tab. We’ll want to ensure that our serial settings match the HMC serial settings.

Configure the Slave ID

Next, we’ll go into the “Modbus” tab and make sure the “Slave ID” matches the “Address” number on our HMC project Serial configuration.

Wiring the HMI + PLC

To start, we’ll want to attach our RS-232 wires to the proper terminal slots on our HMC’s COM 1 port.

Be sure to cross the RX and TX wires between the two devices.

Adding a New Serial Connection

Much like the Ethernet Node, we’ll go to “Network Configuration > Com1” page, and right-click the page to add a new device connection.

Configure a Serial Modbus Driver in MAPware-7000

We’ll then set the new driver we’re adding as a Modbus RTU (Unit as Slave) driver. Also, be sure to note the Serial Communication settings for when we’re configuring the PLC side of the connection.

Assign tags to Modbus Addresses

In a very similar way to the Ethernet method, we’ll now navigate to our Tag database, and assign Modbus registers to our project tags, but using the “Com 1” column instead.