Applied Motion SV7-Q-EE - Manual (Page 5)

6/26/2010
920‐0032a3 eSCL Communication Reference Manual Page 5
Setting F is “DHCP”, which commands the drive to get an IP address from a DHCP server on the network. The
IP address automatically assigned by the DHCP server may be “dynamic” or “static” depending on how the
administrator has configured DHCP. The DHCP setting is reserved for advanced users.
Your PC, or any other device that you use to communicate with the drive, will also have a unique address.
When you launch an Applied Motion Ethernet‐ready software application, it will display the IP address of your
PC on the title bar.
On the drive, switch settings 1 through E use the standard class B subnet mask (i.e. “255.255.0.0”). The mask
for the universal recovery address is the standard class A (i.e. “255.0.0.0”).
One of the great features of Ethernet is the ability for many applications to share the network at the same
time. Ports are used to direct traffic to the right application once it gets to the right IP address. The UDP eSCL
port in our drives is 7775. To send and receive commands using TCP, use port number 7776. You’ll need to
know this when you begin to write your own application. You will also need to choose an open (unused) port
number for your application. Our drive doesn’t care what that is; when the first command is sent to the drive,
the drive will make note of the IP address and port number from which it originated and direct any responses
there. The drive will also refuse any traffic from other IP addresses that is headed for the eSCL port. The first
application to talk to a drive “owns” the drive. This lock is only reset when the drive powers down.
If you need help choosing a port number for your application, you can find a list of commonly used port
numbers at
http://www.iana.org/assignments/port‐numbers .
One final note: Ethernet communication can use one or both of two “transport protocols”: UDP and TCP.
eSCL commands can be sent and received using either protocol. UDP is simpler and more efficient than TCP,
but TCP is more reliable on large or very busy networks where UDP packets might occasionally be dropped.
Option 1: Connect a Drive to Your Local Area Network
PC
SWITCH
or
ROUTER
DRIVE LAN
NIC
If you have a spare port on a switch or router and if you are able to set your drive to an IP address that is
compatible with your network, and not used by anything else, this is a simple way to get connected. This
technique also allows you to connect multiple drives to your PC. If you are on a corporate network, please
check with your system administrator before connecting anything new to the network. He or she should be
able assign you a suitable address and help you get going.