Communication between multiple Controllino Mega's

Using Arduino Networking, Protocols, and Devices
1

Hello everyone,
I am using multiple Controllino's to controle an industry model with various machines.
An easy example for the problem would be the following:
In my case Controllino 1 controles different conveyor belt's and wants to tell Controllino 2, which can controle a crane, when a workpiece is ready to be picked up.
As there will be a lot of different occasions like that, I thought the easiest way to handle the problem would be to connect all Mega's via an ethernet switch.
But the ethernet library, I found in the reference, is for connecting to the internnet.
Does anyone have experience with this form of communication or advice?
Regards
BeefJerky

2

I don't know what a "Controllino Mega" is - presumably it is a version of an Arduino Mega? Can you post a link to its datasheet?

  • How many Megas do you want to connect together?
  • How far apart are they?
  • How much data needs to pass between them (bytes per second)?

For a small number and short distances perhaps a simple Serial connection would work?

For longer distances with a wired connection RS485 might be a good idea.

If a wireless solution is possible and if the distances are not great then maybe nRF24L01+ wireless modules would be suitable.

...R
Simple nRF24L01+ Tutorial

3

Thanks for your quick response.
The datasheet from the controllino is here.
I have to connect 4 of them, they are right next to eacht other and they need to send about 10 boolean variables and maybe a few characters between them, optimally every loop. I'm not quite sure how much data per second that would require.

4

The datasheet says it has an RS485 connection and AFAIK that can work as a BUS with them all connected to it. It is robust and reliable.

...R

5

Okay, thank you for your advices. I will post an update once I got a kind of solution.

6

Crosspost
http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=589707.0

7

Update:
Okay, so I got 2 controllinos connected using the Udp library.
So far, this has been the easiest solution for me and I wanted to share my simple example, since I haven't found one like this.
Controllino 1:

#include <SPI.h>         // needed for Arduino versions later than 0018
#include <Ethernet.h>
#include <EthernetUdp.h>         // UDP library from: bjoern@cs.stanford.edu 12/30/2008


// Enter a MAC address and IP address for your controller below.
// The IP address will be dependent on your local network:
byte mac[] = {  
  0xDE, 0xAD, 0xBE, 0xEF, 0xFE, 0xEF };
IPAddress ip(192, 168, 1, 178);

unsigned int localPort = 8888;      // local port to listen on

// An EthernetUDP instance to let us send and receive packets over UDP
EthernetUDP Udp;

void setup() {
  // start the Ethernet and UDP:
  Ethernet.begin(mac,ip);
  Udp.begin(localPort);

  Serial.begin(9600);
}

void loop() {
  // if there's data available, read a packet
  int packetSize = Udp.parsePacket();
  if(packetSize)
  {
    Serial.print("Received packet of size ");
    Serial.println(packetSize);
    Serial.print("From ");
    Serial.println(Udp.remoteIP());
    Serial.print("Data:  ");
    Serial.println(Udp.read());
    Serial.println("#############################################");
  }
  delay(10);
  
  Udp.beginPacket("192.168.1.177", 8888);
  Serial.print(Udp.beginPacket("192.168.1.177", 8888));
  char x = 5;
  Udp.write(x);
  Udp.endPacket();
  
}

And Controllino 2:

#include <SPI.h>         // needed for Arduino versions later than 0018
#include <Ethernet.h>
#include <EthernetUdp.h>         // UDP library from: bjoern@cs.stanford.edu 12/30/2008


// Enter a MAC address and IP address for your controller below.
// The IP address will be dependent on your local network:
byte mac[] = {  
  0xDE, 0xAD, 0xBE, 0xEF, 0xFE, 0xED };
IPAddress ip(192, 168, 1, 177);

unsigned int localPort = 8888;      // local port to listen on

// An EthernetUDP instance to let us send and receive packets over UDP
EthernetUDP Udp;

void setup() {
  // start the Ethernet and UDP:
  Ethernet.begin(mac,ip);
  Udp.begin(localPort);

  Serial.begin(9600);
}

void loop() {
  // if there's data available, read a packet
  int packetSize = Udp.parsePacket();
  if(packetSize)
  {
    Serial.print("Received packet of size ");
    Serial.println(packetSize);
    Serial.print("From ");
    Serial.println(Udp.remoteIP());
    Serial.print("Data:  ");
    char z = Udp.read();
    if (z == 5) {
      Serial.println(z, DEC);
    }    
    Serial.println(z);
    Serial.println("#############################################");
    
    Udp.beginPacket("192.168.1.178", 8888);
    Udp.write(1); // response after receiving data
    Udp.endPacket();
    
  }
  delay(10);
  
}

Thanks again!
Joe