TwinCAT-ADS-Utilities

An unofficial toolkit for handling aspects of the daily work with Beckhoff PLCs. Providing access to remote file systems, I/O devices, TwinCAT-route-management, and more – all based on the Beckhoff ADS protocol.

About The Project

The Automation Device Specification (ADS) protocol is a crucial component for any PLC running TwinCAT. It serves as a communication layer for many of TwinCAT's basic functionalities outside the real-time environment. This project provides a collection of ADS client wrappers that allow you to access these functions via an easy-to-use .NET class library. TwinCAT-ADS-Utilities uses the .Net API provided by Beckhoff.TwinCAT.Ads. Comprehensive documentation for the ADS API is available on infosys.beckhoff.com.

Features

• Remote File System Access: Interact with the file system and registry of your PLCs remotely.
• ADS Route Management: Configure and manage ADS routes to and between PLCs.
• I/O Configuration: Read the I/O configuration of remote systems without the need for TwinCAT XAE.
• System Parameters & Diagnostics: Monitor system parameters, utilization, and access diagnostic functions of your PLCs.

Prerequisites

• Beckhoff TwinCAT-System-Service installed (comes with any TwinCAT installation)
• .NET 6.0 SDK

Installation

1. Clone the repo

   git clone https://github.com/MathisJu/TwinCAT-ADS-Utilities.git

2. Open the .csproj from /src and build a dynamic class library

Examples

Copy a file to a remote system

using AdsFileClient sourceFileClient = new(AmsNetId.Local);
using AdsFileClient destinationFileClient = new("192.168.1.100.1.1");
await sourceFileClient.FileCopyAsync(@"C:/temp/existingFile.txt", destinationFileClient, @"C:/temp/copiedFile.txt")

Perform a broadcast search

// Option 1:
using AdsRoutingClient localRouting = new(AmsNetId.Local);
List<TargetInfo> devicesFound = await localRouting.AdsBroadcastSearchAsync(secondsTimeout: 5);
foreach (TargetInfo device in devicesFound)
    Console.WriteLine(device.Name);

// Option 2:
using AdsRoutingClient localRouting = new(AmsNetId.Local);
await foreach (TargetInfo device in localRouting.AdsBroadcastSearchAsyncStream(secondsTimeout: 5))
    Console.WriteLine(device.Name);

Add an ADS route to a remote system

using AdsRoutingClient localRouting = new(AmsNetId.Local);
await localRouting.AddRouteAsync("192.168.1.100.1.1", "192.168.1.100", "IPC-Office", "Admin", passwordSecStr);