Flexible Modbus Drivers Connect to Majority of Modbus Devices

Not all Modbus Drivers are Created Equal

With thousands of device types in the world that support it, Modbus is one of the most widely used protocols by third-party device vendors. When choosing Modbus drivers, flexibility is a necessity, given the possibility of varied implementations of the Modbus protocol with variations in addressing, byte order, word order, and more. 

Most Modbus drivers that come with HMI/SCADA packages do not support the necessary level of flexibility to work with non-PLC Modbus Devices. In many cases, the HMI/SCADA vendors will only officially support configurations that use Schneider/Modicon/Telemecanique PLCs. 

TOP Server Modbus Suite drivers are highly configurable, allowing them to work with the widest range of possible devices supporting one of the Modbus protocols. When you choose the TOP Server Modbus Suite, you don’t have the limitations found in most HMI/SCADA system’s Modbus drivers. The features detailed below enable that flexibility.

Configurable Data Encoding Settings

• Configurable byte order
  • Drivers support default Modbus byte ordering or Intel byte ordering (also known as Big Endian or Little Endian formats) which assures proper value display based on your device type.
• First word low in 32-bit data types
  • Drivers configurable for first word low or high for 32-bit data types such as DWord or Long
• First DWord low in 64-bit data types
  • Drivers configurable for first DWord low or high for 64-bit data types such as Double
• Modicon bit ordering (bit 0 is MSB)
  • Drivers configurable to use Modicon bit ordering (high to low) or reverse bit ordering (low to high)
• Treat Longs as Decimals
  • Optionally interpret Long and DWord data types as double-precision 64-bit unsigned decimal values.