Part count on EtherNet/IP

Question

When a PLC is receiving info from the Gocator via EtherNet/IP, is there a way to know when new data is available other than seeing the output to the PLC change? Is part count available on EtherNet/IP output?

Answer

When Surface measurements (firmware 4.x) or Whole Part measurements (firmware 3.x) are used, each available measurement indicates that a part was scanned, and the total number of measurements available equals the number of parts scanned.

If a counter to indicate the number of parts scanned in profile measurements is needed, measurements have to be set up so that the output value of the measurements are "invalid" when there isn't anything being scanned but "valid" when a part is present. A simple logic in the Script tool or in the PLC can then be implemented to count the number of parts that have been scanned. (That is, the measurement output transitioning from "invalid" to a valid value and back to "invalid" again means that one part has been scanned by the Gocator.)