Enhance Modbus device DTM to support other Modbus Function codes then 3,16 & 23

[RoozeeR]

Modicon/Schneider Electric are the founders of Modbus and Modbus/TCP. However in our software we limit the users in functionality. All years I'm with the company, this questions pops-up regularly:

Why does Schneider NOT support the use of other Modbus function codes than 3, 16 and 23 in IO-scanning?

Other function codes can be implemented (read of %IW/3xxxx references) using DATA-EXCH functions, which is a lot of programming effort and introduces limitations, IO-scanning doesn't have.

Today I got a question (again) from one of our alliance partners: Why does Schneider not support other Modbus function codes than 3,16 and 23 while competitors like Mitsubishi, Phoenix Contact and WAGO offer this functionality by default?

Can't the Modbus Device DTM be enhanced to offer this functionality?

[SEStig]

If extra function codes are what you want then the actual "DTM" for a modbus device should be completely revamped.

Currently it isn't what i would call a DTM because there are actually no configuration options when you open it in the DTM browser. It merely provides a way for the CPU/NOC etc to instantiate a device that will use modbus functions which you need to define in the CPU/NOC rather than the device itself. This leads to the issue of not being able to copy/paste modbus devices once set up.

In the modbus device dtm you should be able to specify function codes, rep rates or trigger types etc which then GENERATES the modbus table in the NOC/CPU in the same way a VSD DTM does.

The best example of how this should be implemented is in the Generic Modbus device in EcoStruxure Machine Expert. This has all the above functions and can be duplicated once a device has been set up correctly.

Ideally you would be able to create a new device using the Modbus DTM, configure it with all the required reads/writes/data types etc then save it to a custom library for later reuse on another project.