Pylogix VS OpENer

For university you should consider using pylogix (https://github.com/dmroeder/pylogix) and creating a UI like pyQT (https://www.qt.io/qt-for-python) or wxPython.

PyLogix is a comm driver that lets you communicate over ethernet to allen bradley devices. https://github.com/dmroeder/pylogix

Check: https://github.com/dmroeder/pylogix/tree/master/examples (31_log_to_csv.py)

So with EIP you essentially have 2 forms of communications (I may have some of the specifics wrong here, but the general info is correct). One is the communication used for IO devices over ethernet, such as a Remote IO. This has a specific minimum rate at which communication has to occur or it will cause an error in the PLC. These devices will show up in your Network / IO Tree. If you want to have the PC mimic one of these devices, you are probably looking at this library https://github.com/EIPStackGroup/OpENer.

I'm sure /u/dmroeder can chime in here, but as far as I'm aware pylogix, libplctag, and a few other libraries, use Level 2 (I think that's the term used by CIP) CIP comms to talk to the PLCs. It's the same comms used by HMI etc. The IO though would probably only talk Level 1 comms which has more guarantees on reliability and RPI etc. You could possibly use something like OpENer for this.

It sounds like what your partner is asking for is a EIP adapter. It's the slave device (IO) as opposed to an EIP scanner, which would be the master (PLC). A few years ago I had an application similar to this that fell through. I never for into development but identified this library; https://github.com/EIPStackGroup/OpENer.

It's on their TODO list so probably not yet.