I am designing a multi-node (S7G2 on each node) control system connected by Ethernet. I need some suggestions for setup for this network.
Details:
- This is a private network with a dedicated PLC Ethernet card connected to multiple (up to 75) S7G2 nodes on the network
- All communication is by UDP packets
- We have long distances to cover so it has been decided to use a daisy chain topology where each node is connected to the previous and next nodes in the network by using both Ethernet ports on the S7G2 (one port connected to the node upstream and the other port connected to the node downstream from our node)
- I would like to use the PRC-TC module and the TRNMR register to relay packets along the network. We need to minimize the propagation delay from node to node as much as possible
- Ideally I would use the same MAC/IP address for both Ports and only have one NetX interface. The idea is that only UDP packets that are broadcast or addressed to our MAC /IP address get passed up to our application for processing - other UDP packets are relayed thru the PRC-TC module to nodes upstream and downstream from our board.
- All of our UDP packets are small - we can be less than the 96 byte cut-thru / store and forward limit
Help requested:
- I know how to set up Synergy in the configurator for one interface and I have this working with NetX and UDP communications
- Should I use the configurator to set up the NetX interface to port 0, then write directly to the PRC-TC registers to set up the relay functions?
- Should I have only one sf_el_nx driver since the PRC-TC module handles the interface to both ethernet PHY chips?
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Steve D