How to access arbitrary PLC registers from the EPICS translator ?

To read PLC register values, kagraMpsArray.db is used to define array records to hold the register values. For writing into PLC registers, kagraMpsOut.db is used.

In order to add entries in those db files, you need to edit proto files in base-3.14.12.2/protocols/ directory.

For example, if you want to read registers in M1300 - M1363, you need to add the following entry to kagraMpsArray.proto.

M1300-M1363{
out "500000FF03FF000018001004010001M*0013000040";
in "D00000FF03FF0000440000%1X";
}

The out directive specifies what message to be sent to PLC. The in directive specifies how to interpret the response from PLC.

Details of the message format is explained in the MELSEC communication protocol reference manual, which you can find in Doc/MELSEC/ of PLC directory.

Important points for out:

Treat "500000FF03FF000018001004010001M*00" as a prefix for M registers. For D registers, use "500000FF03FF000018001004010000D*00" instead.

Following "13000040" can be divided into 4 digit groups. "1300" specifies the start address of the register range to be read. "0040" is the number of registers to be read in hexadecimal. So 0040 corresponds to 64 channels.