Mapping CC-Link Data in a Mitsubishi PLC

[Bryon Sol]

Something that Mitsubishi programmers need to do on a regular basis is communicate with a device on a CC-Link network.  This can be CC-Link classic, CC-Link IE Field, CC-Link IE Field Basic or CC-Link IE TSN.  No matter which flavor of CC-Link is used the process is similar and consists of a few steps.  This article is not intended to be a step-by-step how-to but instead to give an overview of the process.

Step 1:  Configure the network with the devices and their required data size(s).

Step 2:  Configure a set of Refresh Data to transfer the information from the CC-Link module (whether that's the built-in Ethernet port for CC-Link IE Field Basic, or an actual add-on module like RJ61BT11 or FX5-CCL-MS etc).

Step 3:  Understand the data and use it!

I like to diagram this out as follows:

 

STEP 1: - Configure the network

For Step 1 - configuring the network, all of the configuration screens look similar, you drag and drop the devices onto your network and set station numbers.  For Ethernet devices you need to set IP addresses as well.  On the devices themselves you need to either parameterize them or configure their station information to match.

Here's an example screenshot showing a VFD on a CC-Link network

You simply drag the device onto the network and then in the upper portion of the window you configure the details for the station.

For instance this is set for Version 1 of CC-Link and a single occupied station.

 

STEP 2:  Configure the Refresh Data

This moves the data into the PLCs usable device memory.

This will look something like the following:

RX Devices are Remote Input bits and in the above picture we are transferring them into B bits in the PLC
RY Devices are Remote Output bits and in the above picture we are  transferring them into B bits in the PLC
RWr Devices are Remote Input Words (Remote Word Read) and in the above picture we are  transferring them into W words in the PLC
RWw Devices are Remote Output Words (Remote Word Write) and in the above picture we are  transferring them into W words in the PLC

What this step does is make the devices on our CC-Link network accessible via PLC internal devices, in this case B bits and W words.  B bits and W words were chosen because they are addressed in Hexadecimal just like RX, RY, RWr and RWw devices.

You can see here RX0 through RX1F is getting mapped to B0 through B1F.  Similarly RY0 through RY1F are being mapped to B100 through B11F.  The RWr and RWw follow a similar pattern.  The B bits and W words chosen are set by the programmer.

STEP 3:  Use the Data.

In order to use the data we need to go to the manual for the device we are controlling and see what the manufacturer tells us.  

For example with a Mitsubishi VFD on CC-Link IE Field basic we get these two maps:

The RX and RY devices look like this:

The RWr and RWw can change but the most simple option is this:

It's now up to you as a programmer.  We can hard code devices for use. For instance since RY0 = B100 we can simply turn on B100 to turn on the Start Forward signal of the VFD, or we can create labels.

For example here's a data structure for the RY devices showing the device that we've mapped.

With data structures in place, labels created for our CC-Link devices and then our mapping complete we can have code that looks like this to turn on/off the VFD

Hopefully this helps you conceptualize device mapping in Mitsubishi PLCs.