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Modbus RTU Troubleshooting Guide

The document provides troubleshooting tips for Modbus RTU (RS485) communication. It discusses issues such as improper communication parameter settings, duplicate slave addresses on the network, timing issues related to the internal self-test of the PDI unit, protocol compatibility, bus termination, and byte ordering of floating point register values. Tips include verifying settings like baud rate and parity, ensuring a unique slave address for each device, adjusting the response delay, using the correct Modbus protocol (RTU), properly terminating the bus at each end, and addressing byte order when reading floating point register pairs.

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23 views2 pages

Modbus RTU Troubleshooting Guide

The document provides troubleshooting tips for Modbus RTU (RS485) communication. It discusses issues such as improper communication parameter settings, duplicate slave addresses on the network, timing issues related to the internal self-test of the PDI unit, protocol compatibility, bus termination, and byte ordering of floating point register values. Tips include verifying settings like baud rate and parity, ensuring a unique slave address for each device, adjusting the response delay, using the correct Modbus protocol (RTU), properly terminating the bus at each end, and addressing byte order when reading floating point register pairs.

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Ender Ibañez
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We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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TROUBLESHOOTING MODBUS RTU (RS485)

Prosoft modules cannot seem to handle DC termination usually because of too much DC loading.
For AC termination, simply place a 50V 0.1uF capacitor in series with a 120 ohm 1/4 W resistor
and place across the + and - terminals at the terminating end (for 4000ft). Be sure to disable the
terminator dip switches S3.1 & S3.2 on the PDI units frequency board.
You may not need any termination if the data slew rate is such that the line length does not
appear to be a transmission line. This is usually the case.
National Semiconductor Application Note 903 discusses AC termination for more precise
selection of the components based on the wire properties.
Here are some troubleshooting tips for modbus networking.
1. Are the communication parameters setup properly? Verify baud rate, parity, slave
address. Power Cycle the unit after setting up the port.
2. Is there more than one slave on the network with the same slave address?
3. If there is an error every 15 minutes, then it is related to the PDI internal self test. The
PDI unit ignores incoming data while performing a self-test. If the data packet had already
been recieved, the response will be sent after the self test has been completed and you
may experience a timeout error and possibly a collision error.
4. Does the Master send a continuous stream of data during the transmission of the packet?
If not, the problem is with the Master unit. Data should be continuous. Windows cannot
work properly with Modbus 100% of the time. PDI unit allows 1.5ct time-out.
5. Does the PDI unit respond too fast? Adjust the reply delay.
6. Is the protocol Modbus RTU or ASCII? PDI unit only speaks Modbus RTU.
7. Is there more than 1 Master (driver) on the network? This can cause unwanted data
collision.
8. Is there more than 1 driver enabled at a time?
9. Is the bus terminated on each end? The PDI unit has the parallel termination option, but if
AC termination is required, place 0.1uF capacitor in series with 120 ohm resistor across
the terminals and turn of dip switches S3.1 & S3.2 on the PDI frequency board.
10. Is the network properly biased? Biasing the lines causes them to be quiet and not
flooding the listening receivers with garbage data while nobody is transmitting. Proper
biasing must be calculated based on the number of slave devices present on the
network. The biasing should be supplied on the Master side, or on any portion of the
network that is independent of the slave devices. A proper sized pull-up resistor should
be placed on the + terminal of the master and a pull-down resistor on the - terminal.
The bias is calculated based on the number of slaves that are in the circuit. Biasing
forces the bus to a known quiet condition so that the first characters being transmitted are
not garbled and unsynchronized. If you chose the PDI default biasing, dip switches S3.3
& S3.4 on the frequency board, then you could have problems if other slaves are present
and the PDI unit were powered off. It is recommended, that unless point-to-point, the PDI
units biasing be OFF.
11. Addressing a floating point number requires a block read/write of pairs of registers. To
change the byte order, simply add 2000 to the absolute address. Refer to Table 1. The
most common are the default 0, and 2000.
Example: register pair 20203-20304 represents Water Content
The query packet will contain the absolute starting address (203) minus 1 = 202 and read
2 words.
The response will be the ABCD format. To read the CDAB format, the query must read
the address plus 2000 = 2202.

Table 1 Register Offsets for Byte Transmission Order


Register Offset
Byte Transmission Order
0
ABCD
2000
CDAB
4000
DCBA
6000
BADC

Description
Standard
Word swapped
Reverse
Byte swapped

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