Hope.. IOT pathway at the company I work for..?

[luisgcu]

hello gents,
I been using particle for a while as hobby , there was point where my hobby get mixed up with my real work , I made demo some time ago using particle photon as modbus RTU master connected to one of the company product, a VFD, with the photon I pull VFD register data to be send to Node-red and also I could make some interaction with Amazon Alexa. I made that demo, and I presented that to all the applications engineers for north america, they where surprised that I was able to present something like that… they liked the idea… but just ended there was fun…
For some reason the factory in the UK contacted me today to know what I did and how… I passes all the information that I have on hand… I mention to them that I may use other platforms instead of Particle to achieve what I did… but particle caught my attention in so many thing that the other do not have, I and not going to enumerate all that, because you already know all the good things that particle have.

Anytime I have chance I will tell anyone on the company that I work for, that instead of reinventing the wheel why not try a platform that is proven to work and solid? and that is Particle.
I will try to enhance the demo that I did some time ago… isn’t far from perfect but it works.
Basically to connect and pull data from our VDF we have 2 ways available.
-Modbus RTU ( the one I use with Photon)
-Ethernet ( some VFD have embedded Ethernet ports) so we may use modbus TCP to get drive parametters and data.
So my question is … if there any experience with any of the particle hardware implementing Ethernet connection, any particular experience is know using the Ethernet to pull data from a device using modbus TCP and at the same time being able to send that data to cloud using the WiFi( which is the side that would be connected to the internet)
Can you point me to any project with Particle that already experiment using for example this Ethernet shield that is commonly used with Arduino?
enc28j60 ethernet shield

Thanks in advanced for any comments…

[peekay123]

@luisgcu, great to hear other users recognizing the value of Particle!

As for Ethernet, you may want to look here for a short term solution:

Ethernet interface for Particle using W5500 User Library Complete

Hi Everyone. We are working on developing an Ethernet interface for the Particle platform. We debated many avenues for this project but landed on connecting the Particle processor to a Wiznet W5500 via SPI. Wiznet had libraries for Arduino which I have ported for Particle. The library is fully functional on the user application side and you can take a look at the library here: The current iteration of this project is an overlay shield which plugs in over the top of a Photon or Electron m…

In the long term, the newest generation of Particle devices (Argon, Boron and Xenon) will be able to use an Ethernet Featherwing giving them access to both “raw” Ethernet and to the Particle Cloud over Ethernet.

Particle just keeps getting better!

[IOTrav]

Hi @luisgcu

Yes, what you are talking about can be done with this Ethernet overlay module we made for Particle:

Ethernet Overlay Shield for Particle Photon and Electron (BETA) - store.ncd.io

I ported Wiznet’s W5500 library for Arduino over to Particle and posted it here:
https://github.com/ControlEverythingCom/Wiznet-W5500-Particle
It’s actually available in Community libraries on Particle as well if you just search for NCD_Ethernet_Overlay it should pop up. The library will allow you to make TCP socket connections like you need but will not allow you to communicate to the particle cloud over Ethernet. Since you will be communicating to the cloud over WiFi this should work perfectly for your project.

As @peekay123 mentioned Particle very wisely developed their own version of this based on the Wiznet W5500 as well so they think it’s a good idea as well apparently.

Let me know if you have any questions at all. Always happy to help.

[Gman_IoTangle]

Apparently this Library will not work on Gen 3 devices like the Boron etc.

Doesn't work with Particle Boron or Argon

Does anybody have advice or libraries so that the Gen3 devices can use the Ethernet port for local traffic like the OP mentioned.
I have a project at standstill until I get the Ethernet/ TCP client to work(not for cloud connectivity, cellular will still be used for cloud)

[ScruffR]

The Gen3 devices do offer the ability to divert their entire network traffic to Ethernet but then you will not be able to use WiFi or Cellular anymore.
If this would be acceptable you can have that out the box.

https://docs.particle.io/reference/device-os/firmware/boron/#ethernet

For more info around that topic I’d have to defer to @rickkas7 who has previously answered similar questions that can be found in this forum too.

e.g. here

Boron w/ Ethernet Featherwing + LTE

There will be a couple problems with this setup. One is that the the Ethernet FeatherWing only supports DHCP addressing. It does not support static IP addressing, so it won’t work on an isolated network that doesn’t have DHCP. The other problem is that as soon as the Ethernet has link and an IP address, Device OS will attempt to use it for the Internet/cloud connection, even if the network is isolated and can’t connect to the Internet. It will never fall back to cellular once the Ethernet inte…

Communicate PLC and Boron 2G/3G using Ethernet FeatherWing

It’s hard to say for sure which would be easier. There’s also a third option, which is probably the one I would do: Use the Particle Ethernet FeatherWing hardware, but not the Device OS support. Leave the Ethernet detection feature flag off so Device OS won’t look for the port. The Ethernet FeatherWing is just a Wiznet W5500. It has a simple AT interface with a socket implementation for TCP and UDP. There are some libraries available for it, I would just use one of those. Since you have direc…

[Gman_IoTangle]

Thank you,
I did come across those posts and hoped that someone overcame this obstacle or has some tips for this “ Ethernet detection feature flag off so Device OS won’t look for the port”
Then I guess I still need some libraries to handle static IP and TCP client.
The existing Ethernet Libraries I can search for is not Gen3 comparable… yet…
Thanks good