Save yourself time and money with the latest addition to our INGEAR.NET development tools product line, the INGEAR.NET.MBLink component. With this component, you can:

• Use Visual Studio 2005 and 2008 with VB or C# to connect to your Modbus Devices
• Modbus RTU, Serial over Ethernet, and Modbus TCP are all supported.
• Develop Windows Forms, Windows Services, or Web Services

How Can the INGEAR.NET.MBLink Component Help Me?

With a minimum investment of time and money, you can have your Visual Studio application interact with your Modbus device. It’s the one-line simplicity of the MBLink component that creates many opportunities to use the Modbus data in Visual Studio for graphics, trending, data logging, alarming, and anything else you can create in Visual Studio.

What if you need to talk to multiple devices?

With the INGEAR.NET.MBLink, it’s a simply matter of creating one MBLink Controller instance for each device.

Is it easy to read or write multiple tags?

Again, it’s as simple as one line of code, from which you can read or write one, two, or many tags by using single variables or arrays. The choice is yours.

How does the INGEAR.NET.MBLink work?

Simply add some references to your Visual Studio application, determine what type of Modbus device you are connecting with, and finally write the few lines code to read and write the Modbus registers.  Some sample code is shown below:

It’s that simple. The power in the INGEAR.NET.MBLink component, as with all of the INGEAR.NET components, is in its simplicity. There are no complicated setup routines, no specific sequence of commands for reading or writing, just the straight-forward ease of a single Visual Studio object with simple read and write methods.

To What Modbus Devices can the INGEAR.NET.MBLink talk?

Using only one line of code, the component talks to the following types of devices:

• Modbus RTU. The standard Modbus implementation. The component will communicate to the device over a serial RS-232, 422, or 485 port.
   
• Modbus RTU over Ethernet. Also called Ethernet Encapsulation, this is where another device (such as a Serial-to-Ethernet converter) takes the RTU serial message and sends it over an Ethernet connection. This process is called “wrapping” or “encapsulation”. The INGEAR.NET.MBLink can talk to a Modbus device configured with Ethernet Encapsulation.
   
• Modbus TCP. A variation on the Modbus protocol specifically built for communications over Ethernet. This is not the same as Ethernet Encapsulation (see above), but is rather a completely different protocol from Modbus RTU over Ethernet.

What Type of Applications Can I Build with the INGEAR.NET.MBLink component?

The INGEAR.NET.MBLink component can be used to build these types of applications:

• Windows Forms. The most common type of application – simply an application that has forms and windows associated with it. Perfect for monitoring device condition and changing values as needed.
   
• Windows Service. Normally a program that runs in the background and doesn’t have user interaction (such as a Windows Forms application will). Perfect for monitoring alarm conditions or logging tags to a database.
   
• Web Service. A program without user interaction (just like a Windows Service), but that sits on a web server. Browsers like Internet Explorer or Firefox, even web server applications like ASP.NET or PHP can then communicate with the web service to retrieve or write data to the Modbus device. Web services are perfect for remote web-based monitoring of data.
   

Where can I get a Demonstration Copy of the INGEAR.NET.MBLink Component?

Click to download a fully-functional 10-day trial version of the software

What if I have questions?

Call us on 888-665-3678 (US Toll Free) or +1 704 849 2773 global

Submit your question online at http://support.softwaretoolbox.com

or visit the INGEAR Modbus.NET focus website.