FieldServer FS-8700-01 Computer Drive User Manual


 
FS-8700-01_Modbus_RTU_(T28700-01) Driver Manual Page 17 of 21
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Appendix A.4. Managing Floating points with Modbus
Modbus as a standard does not support floating point formats. Many vendors have written higher level communications software to
use two 16 bit registers to represent floating point or 32 bit integers. This requires conversion software on both ends of the
communication channel. The FieldServer supports this function and also provides other options to resolve this issue.
Transferring non-integer values with one register
It is possible to represent values higher than 32767 using one register in one of two ways:
Declare data arrays as type Uint16 (Unsigned integer). This will give you a range from 0 to 65535.
Use the scaling function on the FieldServer, which will allow you to set up any range, with 16 bit resolution.
The following example shows how scaling can be achieved on the Server side of the configuration. Note that scaling can also be
done on the Client side to scale down a value that was scaled up by a Modbus vendor. Further information regarding scaling can be
found in the FieldServer Configuration manual.
Example :
Map_Descriptors
Map_Descriptor_Name, Data_Array_Name, Data_Array_Offset, Function, Node_Name, Address, Length, Data_Array_Low_Scale, Data_Array_High_Scale, Node_Low_Scale, Node_High_Scale,
SMD_AI1, DA_AI_01, 0, Server, MBP_Srv_11, 30001, 200, 0, 100, 0, 10000
SMD_AO1, DA_AO_01, 0, Server, MBP_Srv_11, 40001, 200, 0, 100, 0, 10000
This example multiplies the values in the data array by 100 (10000 on Node_High_Scale is 100X larger than 100 on
Data_Array_High_Scale). This is most commonly used when the user wants to introduce values after the decimal point. For
example, a value of 75.6 will be sent as 7560, which can then be rescaled by the Modbus master.