AWC’s application engineering team recently worked on a project involving the integration of a SINAMICS G130 VFD into TIA Portal V15, and wanted to share some lessons learned from the project:
- A G130 VFD can be configured with a CU320 Control Unit in TIA Portal V15.1.
- An S7-1200 PLC cannot be networked as an PROFINET I/O Controller to a CU320 Control Unit.
In an attempt to work around these limitations, the team commissioned the G130 using the Startdrive commissioning wizard inside of TIA Portal, and subsequently performed an “Upload as new station” within the same TIA Portal project. This resulted in (1) a G130 VFD to commission with and (2) a GSD file that could be connected to the S7-1200. Some further limitations were encountered here:
- The GSD file only allows a Vector Drive Object (used for parameterization) to be assigned to Slot 1.
- TIA Portal does not allow changing the slot order of a CU320 Control Unit, therefore the Vector Drive Object is automatically placed in Slot 2.
- This behavior indicates that TIA Portal alone cannot be used to commission a CU320 Control Unit communicating to an S7-1200.
The only way to successfully establish communication between the S7-1200 and the CU320 is to create the GSD file in STARTER (Siemens’ standalone drive software) instead of TIA Portal, because STARTER allows the Vector Drive Object to be moved up to Slot 1, and then import this GSD file into TIA Portal. This will allow the GSD configuration to match that of the actual G130 hardware. However, there are several things to consider when taking this approach:
- Both TIA Portal and STARTER must be installed and used; these are two different software platforms that are cannot be integrated with each other (Startdrive is the drive software integrated into TIA Portal).
- The G130 must be commissioned via STARTER and not in TIA Portal
- The telegrams configured in the GSD properties in TIA Portal must match the G130 properties configured in STARTER; this check must happen manually since TIA Portal and STARTER are separate software platforms.
- Any changes to the VFD must be made in both software platforms.
Based on this experience, the team makes the following recommendations:
- Instead of using an S7-1200 to communicate to a CU320 Control Unit, use an S7-1500 as the PROFINET I/O Controller instead. The engineering workarounds and costs necessary to establish communication between an S7-1200 and a CU320, and subsequently modify or troubleshoot the VFD, are extensive and may significantly outweigh any potential total cost savings.
Additional Contributions
- Julyann Tu – AWC, Inc.