The GE Fanuc IC697BEM734 IC660/IC661 Bus controller is a single-channel I/O Bus controller for the GE IC66 Bus system. The IC697BEM734 Bus controller occupies only a single slot on the GE IC66 PLC rack, and it is configured with a Windows-based (MS-DOS) programming software. The IC697BEM734 Bus controller asynchronously scans the IC66 (IC660 or IC661) I/O blocks, transferring I/O data to the PLC CPU after every iterated scan of the IC697 PLC backplane. During a scan, the IC697BEM734 Bus controller accepts any fault information from the diagnostic references for the PLC CPU upon each completed scan, and transmits ladder logic commands from the CPU to the connected field devices. The communication options supported by this module include global communication, directed communications initiated by a PLC CPU communication service request, and peer-to-peer IC666 Bus data transfers (it acts as a communications node for other devices).

The IC697BEM734 Bus controller is configured by using an MS-DOS-based programming software configurator function. As a standard procedure, the MS-DOS-based programming software configurator function sets the default baud rate to 153.6K bauds and the default serial bus address to 31, but the operators can specify baud rates and serial bus address by using the MS-DOS based programming software. Data messages, commonly called “Datagrams” can be transferred from one device to another or broadcasted to all devices on the network via ladder logic commands. The IC697BEM734 Bus controller has a voltage rating of 5 Volts DC, and it draws 1.3 Amps of backplane current. The IC697BEM734 Bus controller has 3 LEDs indicators that show operation and communication statuses, and it comes with a single rear-end serial port (PL1) for connecting to a handheld monitor and a Bus field terminal connector (PL3) for connecting to the Bus field.