Arduino PLC IDE Setup and Board's License Activation
Overview
The Arduino PLC IDE offers the possibility to use IEC IEC61131-3 programming languages (LD, SFC, FBD, ST, IL) with the Portenta Machine Control and Opta™. The PLC IDE offers a wide set of standard features commonly used in industrial automation. This tutorial will show you how to connect the Portenta Machine Control and Opta to the Arduino PLC IDE, learning how to activate the software license and the basic setup to have your board up and running with the Arduino PLC IDE.
Goals
- Install the Arduino PLC IDE and the Arduino PLC IDE Tools
- Upload the PLC IDE bootloader to the board
- Connect the computer to your device through the IDE
- Activate the device license
- Test the connection
Required Hardware and Software
- Board compatible with the Arduino PLC IDE (Portenta Machine Control or Opta)
- Arduino PLC IDE (Official Website)
- If you have a Portenta Machine Control, you will need a unique PLC IDE License key for your device (https://store.arduino.cc/products/plc-key-portenta-machine-control)
- If you have an Opta, you do not need any license key to activate your product. Go to section License Activation With Pre-Licensed Products (Opta) to know more.
To get the Arduino PLC IDE and the PLC IDE License for your device, please visit the Arduino software page and the store page
Instructions
To use the Arduino PLC IDE software, go to the Arduino PLC IDE official website and click on the download button. Download the following two executables:
- The Arduino PLC IDE Tools
- The Arduino PLC IDE
The first one will install all the required drivers, libraries and cores that you are going to need, while the second one will install the IDE software.
1. Arduino PLC IDE Tools
Before installing the Arduino PLC IDE you need to install all the required tools to make it work on your computer. Once you have downloaded the Arduino PLC IDE Tools executable, double-click on it and follow the installation instructions.
Once the installation is finished, all the required drivers, libraries and Arduino cores will be installed and ready to be used. Your computer is now ready to install the Arduino PLC IDE.
It is possible that during the installation some windows terminals will be opened and closed by the installation program. Do not worry about it, those windows are required by the program to install all the tools that your computer needs
2. Arduino PLC IDE Installation
Once the Arduino PLC IDE Tools are installed, double-click on the executable of the Arduino Pro IDE that you downloaded. Follow the installation instructions and, once the process is done, click on finish.
In case you have any problem, perform a reboot to be sure that all the drivers, libraries and dependencies are working and up to date.
Open the Arduino PLC IDE program to see the welcome screen.
3. Project Setup
Create a new project by clicking the middle New project ... button or File > New Project
After creating the project, there are some new windows on the screen, click on the left panel and switch it to the Resources tab, inside the window on the tree structure. Now click on your board and it will open the Boards configuration page.
4. Download the Runtime
The board needs to run a specific program (runtime) in order to interact with the PLC IDE. Go to the "Other" section below the "Device Info" block.
Plug your device to the computer, select the Serial Port of your board and click the Download button.
The device will show up two Serial Ports, the default one (generally with the lowest number) is the usual Serial Port, the secondary one (usually with the highest number) is a virtual port for Modbus communication from the device to your computer. Take note of the port number assigned to the secondary port (virtual port for Modbus) as it will be needed in a second step.
5. Connect to the Device
After the runtime is up and running, set up the communication by going to On-line > Set up communication.
On the new pop-up window open the properties of the Modbus protocol.
Make sure the Modbus protocol is using the secondary Serial port number, the Modbus Virtual port you took note of before. Press OK.
Click OK to save the settings and press the connect button on On-line > connect.
6. License Activation with Product Key (Portenta Machine Control)
If the communication is successful the main panel will show the license section to be filled in and a status indicator.
Online Activation
To use your product license, paste the key in the blank next to Product Key and press the Activate button.
After you click the Activate button, the IDE will bind the license to the hardware ID. A popup telling you to reboot the target (which is the device connected to the PLC IDE) will show up; press the reset button of your device to reboot.
Once the product has been activated, it is recommended to get the Hardware-ID of your device.
Offline Activation
To activate the product Offline, deselect the "Online" slider and the scenario below will show up:
Follow the instructions provided using our Contact form and generate the Activation Request File.
Once you receive the Activation file, drag and drop the file in the dashed rectangle or select it from the folder where it is stored to complete your Offline Activation.
7. License Activation with Pre-Licensed Products (Opta)
When a product is Pre-licensed, the following scenario will be displayed:
By clicking the Activate PLC Runtime button, the product activation will be completed and the PLC Status will be set as OK:
Now the product is ready to be used with the PLC IDE.
8. Activation Recovery
In case the hardware is being reflashed and the key got lost, the license can be recovered just by clicking the "Forgot your Product Key?" button:
The IDE will then connect to a server, validate the hardware and recover the activation, showing a confirmation pop-up when done:
9. Getting the Hardware-ID of Your Device
To do it follow the next steps:
- Be sure that your device is disconnected from the Arduino PLC IDE
- Open the Arduino IDE software
- Go to Tools > Board > Arduino Mbed OS Portenta Boards > Arduino Portenta H7 (M7 Core)
- Go to Tools > Port to select the proper port (the default one shown before in the PLC IDE inside the Arduino PMC Configuration > Other section)
- Go to Tools > Serial Monitor and reset the board. Look at the end of the boot report to find the "Hardware-ID" and store it in a safe place.
10. Download a Program
Let's download and run the first program on your device. We are going to use the default program that is included in a project: a counter. To upload that program to your PLC, it is needed to compile the program and send it to the target device.
11. Communication Test
Open the Watch window by clicking on "View > Tool Windows > Watch", it will attach a new window on the right side called Watch. This window shows the real-time variables value.
To add a new variable to be watched you can click the Insert new item button inside the window, it will open a popup window, on the name label insert "cnt", and on the location "main", click OK and it will add the variable
cntmaincntSelect the Watch window and click on the Start/Stop watch button unless the value of the variable is already getting updated.
Conclusions
In this tutorial, we went through how to set up the Portenta Machine Control or Opta™ with the Arduino IDE lab, learned how to connect the board to the program through Modbus, activate the hardware license of your product, and create a simple sketch with one variable that went compiled and downloaded inside the board. Finally, we learned how to see the values of the variables in real-time using the Watch window.
Now that your board is up and running with the Arduino PLC IDE, you can start to create your own professional solutions.
