Hi @user111!
Did you follow our tutorial for PLCSIM V13-17? This error message is specific to S7-PLCSIM Advanced. To choose the version of PLCSIM you want to use with Factory I/O, you should press the ‘CONFIGURATION’ button on the driver window, and then select from the ‘Model’ options:
- S7-1200 and S7-1500, which correspond to S7-PLCSIM V13 to V17;
- S7-300, which corresponds to S7-PLCSIM V5;
- S7-1500 (S7-PLCSIM Advanced), which corresponds to S7-PLCSIM Advanced.
Unfortunately, and unlike S7-PLCSIM V5 or Advanced, in versions 13 to 17, Siemens doesn’t provide a mechanism to communicate directly with the simulator. As such, a specific FC was provided to us by MHJ-Software, and it should run on your project (MHJ-PLC-Lab-Function-…), even though we’re not sure how it works. To make the process simpler we supply a template project as a starting point, already with the required configurations and FC.
So, to answer your question, it is possible to change the hardware but it can be problematic. You need to make sure the values transmitted by Factory I/O are not being overwritten by the values of the I/O modules as their state is copied to the CPU process image. I recommend you take a look at this thread, it might be useful (particularly the part about the input addresses).
I hope this helps you fix the problems.