Mitsubishi Ethernet Communication Interface API

The DASTEC Corporation Mitsubishi Ethernet Communication Interface API allows the user to implement bi-directional communications to exchange data between applications running on a PC-based or embedded system with other peer devices supporting the Mitsubishi Ethernet protocol. The peer devices can be Mitsubishi A, Q or FX Series PLC(s), other host computers or even other system applications using the API.

The Mitsubishi Ethernet Communication Interface API enables a system to acts as a client to other Mitsubishi peers, initiating read and write operations on behalf of the system applications. The API also allows the system to emulate an Mitsubishi A, Q or FX Series PLC to respond to read and write requests and thus acts as a "virtual PLC" to other Mitsubishi Ethernet peers. The API is available for various combinations of operating systems and hardware platforms and can be used with C, C++, C# or Visual Basic.

The API consists of two component functionalities, client side and server side. The client side functionality is implemented with a single API library. Server side functionality is implemented with a library/executable pair. Together these components manage all aspects of the protocol and data exchange including responding to peers with proper acknowledgements, error/success codes and protocol data byte ordering. The system application need only to deal with the data values exchanged in native byte order. The user can employ either the API's client, server or both functionalities with minimal code implementation.

The Mitsubishi Ethernet Communication Interface API supports the following protocol function commands:

Client API Functionality

To exchange data with Mitsubishi Ethernet peers, a system application can initiate read and/or write operation(s) to peers by simply calling the client's library functions. The functions include the ability to create handle(s) for the peer device(s) and then using those handle(s) to call the clinet's library read and write functions. Operation results are returned directly to the calling application, as is data in the case of read operations.

Client API Supports:

Server API Functionality

Using the server executable program provided as part of the API, a system can appear as a Mitsubishi Ethernet device (A, Q or FX Series PLC) on the network. By managing all Mitsubishi Ethernet communication operations, the server executable receives and responds to both read and write requests from peer devices. Data written by peers is stored into separate databases maintained by the server executable for each Mitsubishi device memory (Input (X), Output (Y), Internal Relay (M) and Data Register (D)). The data received is stored in the byte order appropriate for the system's processor. The data for read requests received from peers is retrieved and returned from these databases as well.

No user programming is required for the system to act in this server mode. Peers can read and write to the system as if it were a Mitsubishi PLC with no user application programs running. Applications have access to the server's databases indirectly through specific API library functions calls or directly via shared memory access. In this way, the user applications obtain data written from peers and can update the system's "virtual PLC's" data so that peers can retrieve it.

Server API Supports:

Specifications:

Ordering Information

Product Name:

Mitsubishi Ethernet Communication Interface API

Supported Platforms Part Numbers:

Platform Part Number
.NET/.NETCF NET-MITSTCPAPI
Contact DASTEC about other supported platforms or to inquire about supporting other platforms.