AKD EtherNet/IP Diagnostics and Dynamic Mapping

Note at the time of Workbench and FW 1-15, when dynamically mapping instances using the Workbench GUI, if the Ethernet IP screen in the project tree was exited and re-entered, Workbench would reorder the instances in numerical order rather than keeping the order used when the Configure was used.
This was reported and an update with fix will occur in Workbench 1-16 soon to be released.
Just be aware this can happen.

I am trying to dynamically map a USER.INT parameter in order to pass a heartbeat from the PLC to the AKD drive and back to the PLC. However, the parameter does not appear to work in the dynamic map. It displays a value that is changing in Workbench, but I cannot read nor write to it from the PLC. I was under the impression from the help file that these parameters can be used in this way.

I am able to map other command and response parameters with no issue.

I tested the USER.INTx instances 3 ways: dynamic mapping, AKD_Read_Parameter, and using explicit messaging ( MSG block ). None of them worked correctly ( the AKD_Read_Parameter and MSG blocks merely errored out "ER" ). I will report my findings but do not have an assessment as to when there will be a fix. I've not seen any implementations of AKD Ethernet IP using the USER.INTx instances and I recommend at this time to not use them.
We do not have an example of heartbeat code but if the communication is disrupted with cyclic data ( Compactlogix and Contrologix ) the AKD drive will report a F702 fieldbus loss ( i.e. the cable is unplugged ). This is not true with the Micrologix 1400 ( explicit messaging only ). I've had a few users to indicate there is supposed to be a way to monitor if there are timeouts on each Generic Ethernet Module in the PLC ( sample logic in AB/Rockwell's manuals? ). In general, these methods are up to the programmer to determine and write.

OK thanks for the response. There is a "Get System Variable" (GSV) instruction in RSLogix to get the status of a module, and there may be other ways as well. The good old fashioned heartbeat is nice, and it would be good to get those USER variables working just for other usages outside this simple one.

Version 1-17-3-0 fixed issues related to the 32 bit ( 4 byte ) versions ( instances ) which included issues writing negative values to them.