TS_MEI using multiple network masters talking to one serial slave

Question

We have a TS_MEI with a single slave connected to serial port 1. We have 2 different masters polling the same slave using TCP port 502. It looks to be working with just the 502 port setup but we are seeing some messages timing out.

Should we need to setup multiple network masters on different ports? Do I need to setup a 503 port for the second master?

If I don't need to create multiple masters on different ports, at what point would I want to create more masters on different ports?

Thanks

Answer 1

If you enable the 'IA engine', then it should allow multiple hosts on port 502. However, you might need to reduce the various timeouts so the TS_MEI 'hangs up' and idle socket faster.

What I've seen, is the hosts start 'thrashing' sockets, so the TS_MEI eventually runs out of free sockets, with all sockets 'waiting' for more requests.

The other thing which happens, is some slaves disable their serial port after seeing a message, so you need to add a delay between requests (aka: 2nd master cannot poll slave too rapidly after 1st master). I don't remember the TS_MEI config so well, but there should be an RTS turn-around/toggle delay.