Migrating STARTER Project to Startdrive V15.1 in TIA Portal

1. Overview

Engineers who originally commissioned SINAMICS G120, S120, S210, G130, G150, S150 or SIMOTION drives with the legacy STARTER commissioning tool (V5.x) or with the integrated STARTER S7 add-in inside SIMATIC Manager often need to consolidate those projects into a single TIA Portal environment. Once the machine enters the next retrofit, safety recertification, or end-of-life phase, the move to Startdrive V15.1 inside TIA Portal V15.1 is the most efficient path because Startdrive unifies drive parameterization, safety acceptance, message/error frame handling, and HMI tag linking inside the same engineering framework as the S7-1500/S7-1200 PLC and the connected HMI.

The most important fact up front: there is no direct, single-click migration of a STARTER project (.dproj / STARTER archive) into a Startdrive V15.1 project. The original ".dproj" archive cannot be opened or imported by Startdrive. The recommended engineering procedure is therefore a three-stage physical transfer:

1. Download the active parameters from STARTER into the drive and persist them to the non-volatile memory (RAM-to-ROM).
2. Create an empty TIA Portal / Startdrive project, then use the Accessible nodes function to discover the drive on PROFINET/ PROFIBUS and upload the parameter set back into the project.
3. Verify the uploaded parameters, the Safety Integrated checksum (if applicable), and the cyclic message frames before any productive run.

2. Prerequisites

3. Why Direct Migration Is Not Supported

STARTER stores the offline project as a .dproj container with proprietary object structures, custom DCC chart blocks, and its own drive navigator layout. Startdrive, in contrast, persists the drive configuration as a TIA Portal device object with a different parameter view, integrated message-frame editor, and the Startdrive-specific drive axis object. Because the two tools use fundamentally different data models and toolchains, Siemens does not provide a converter utility. The only sanctioned workflow is to round-trip the parameter values through the drive's own non-volatile memory and re-import them into the new TIA project.

What this means in practice for the engineer who wants to consolidate three SINAMICS G120 drives in one cabinet:

• Hardware topology and PROFINET device names must be recreated by hand in the TIA project (or imported from an EPLAN AML file, see Section 7).
• PLC-HMI tag wiring for SINAMICS telegram status words and encoder values must be re-linked. In STARTER, the tag connection lives in the SIMATIC manager; in Startdrive it is created automatically as a PLC tag table entry on insertion of the drive device.
• Custom DCC (Drive Control Chart) logic, if used, must be re-implemented in the Startdrive DCC editor. The DCC block library is similar but the saved chart file format is not binary-compatible.

4. Migration Strategy: RAM-to-ROM and Upload from Accessible Nodes

The official Siemens procedure, documented in the TIA Portal V15.1 help and the Startdrive: Loading parameter settings FAQ, consists of the following physical data flow:

  STARTER (.dproj)   --> [Download] -->  Drive RAM  --> [RAM-to-ROM] -->  Flash/EEPROM
         |                                                                 |
         v                                                                 v
  (archive only)                                              [Accessible nodes]
         |                                                                 |
         v                                                                 v
                          TIA Portal V15.1 (Startdrive) project

This round-trip is the only path that preserves every parameter value, including Safety Integrated passwords, encoder scaling, and BICO interconnections that are stored only on the drive, not in the offline STARTER file.

5. Step-by-Step Procedure

5.1 Persist the active parameter set on the drive

1. Open the existing project in STARTER and go online with the drive.
2. Select the drive, right-click and choose Target device → Copy RAM to ROM (or call parameter p971 = 1 from the expert list). This writes the current working parameters into the non-volatile memory of the CU and/or the connected CF/SD card.
3. Verify the action by checking parameter r971[0] for a successful completion and reviewing the parameter save log in the STARTER output window.

5.2 Create the empty Startdrive project

1. Open TIA Portal V15.1 and create a new project. Add a SIMATIC S7-1500 (or S7-1200) station that matches the existing PLC program.
2. In the project tree, open Devices & Networks. Switch to the Network view tab.
3. From the Hardware catalog, drag the matching SINAMICS drive family (e.g., SINAMICS G120 with CU250S-2 PN V4.7) into the network. Do not configure any parameters yet.

5.3 Use Accessible Nodes to upload the live configuration

1. Make sure the PG is connected to the same PROFINET subnet as the drive. The drive's IP address and PROFINET device name must already be set (use PRONETA, SIMATIC Automation Tool, or the drive's BOP-2 panel).
2. In the TIA Portal project tree, click Online → Accessible nodes. The drive should appear in the list of detected devices with its PROFINET name and IP address.
3. Select the drive entry, then choose Upload device to PG/PC → Device configuration (for hardware) and Upload device to PG/PC → Parameters (for the parameter set). The parameter upload reads the entire active parameter image from the drive back into the offline TIA project.
4. Wait for the progress bar to complete. On large drives (G150/G130/S150) this can take 2-5 minutes depending on the number of drive objects.
5. Once the upload finishes, perform a Compile → Hardware and software (rebuild all) to re-link the PLC tags and the HMI connections.

5.4 Re-link the drive object to the PLC

1. Open the PLC tag table and confirm that the Startdrive wizard has created the standard telegrams (e.g., Telegram 1 for speed control, Telegram 3 for speed/position, Telegram 5/6 for SERVO/SINAMICS S).
2. Drag a PROFINET cable between the PLC PROFINET interface and the drive PROFINET interface in the network view. This binds the telegram IO addresses to the drive object.
3. If a safety telegram (PROFIsafe F-CPU 30, 31, 901, 902) is required, open the drive's Properties → Safety Integrated and re-enter the PROFIsafe address and the safety password. The password is stored in p9761 and is not always uploaded; have the original commissioning record at hand.

6. Verifying the Uploaded Configuration

Verification is non-optional. After the upload, run the following checks before connecting any motor:

7. AML/EPLAN Import for Hardware Topology

If the cabinet was originally engineered in EPLAN Electric P8, the Startdrive V15.1 TIA Portal can ingest the device list through an AML (AutomationML) import. The TIA Portal V15.1 release notes for SINAMICS Startdrive describe this as the supported way to seed a TIA project with a complete SINAMICS G120 and S210 topology from an EPLAN P8 export, including PROFINET names, IP addresses, and IO addresses. The workflow is:

1. In EPLAN P8, generate the AML export of the SINAMICS devices (menu Project data → Export → AutomationML).
2. In TIA Portal, choose Options → Import device topology (AML) and select the AML file.
3. Startdrive creates the device objects with the correct CU type, firmware, telegram, and PROFINET name pre-populated. The drive still needs the parameter upload (Section 5.3) to bring in the tuning values.

AML import does not replace the parameter upload; the two steps are complementary. Use AML for the hardware/IP/telegram scaffolding, then use Accessible Nodes upload for the parameter content.

8. Safety Integrated Acceptance Test in Startdrive Advanced V15.1

For drives with PROFIsafe or SINAMICS Integrated Safety (SS1, STO, SOS, SLS, SSM, SDI), Startdrive Advanced V15.1 introduces a guided Safety Integrated acceptance test wizard. After the parameter upload, run this wizard before any productive run. The wizard records each safety function, its parameter set, the test trigger, and the test result, and produces a signed acceptance report that should be filed with the original safety acceptance log.

Key parameters to re-verify during the acceptance test:

• p9601.0 — enable Safety Integrated functions per drive object.
• p9650 — PROFIsafe telegram type (F-CPU 30/31/901/902).
• p9720/p9721 — actual vs. reference SI checksum.
• p9761 — safety password (cannot be uploaded in all firmware versions; document the original value).

9. The V15.1 to V16 Upgrade Lock-Out

The V15.1 package is therefore best treated as a fixed-version workstream. If a second engineering station is also on TIA Portal V16, the V15.1 project must be opened only on the V15.1 station. Multi-version parallel installation of TIA Portal on the same machine is supported (V15.1, V16, V17 can coexist on Windows 10/11) but each Portal instance must remain on its own Startdrive version.

10. Field-Proven Tips and Common Pitfalls

11. Commissioning Checklist

1. Archive the original STARTER project (Project → Archive) and the drive’s parameter image (Target system → Load to file system → Parameter image).
2. RAM-to-ROM in STARTER; power-cycle the CU.
3. Open TIA Portal V15.1 with Startdrive V15.1 installed; create the empty project; import the topology (EPLAN AML or hand wiring).
4. Use Accessible nodes → Upload parameters to bring the live parameter set into the TIA project.
5. Re-link PROFINET, PLC tags, HMI tags, and PROFIsafe connections.
6. Compile the project; download the PLC and the HMI.
7. Run the Safety Integrated acceptance test (Startdrive Advanced) and update the safety log.
8. Run a no-load commissioning of each drive (jog mode, reference run for absolute encoders).
9. Document the project version (V15.1 only) and the upgrade restriction in the project audit log.