How do "virtual" I/O signals get mapped?

    First off I am new to ABB's, having only experience with Fanuc up to this point. I have a robot backup that I am supposed to be using as a template for I/O config on a new cell. All cell communications are handled through devicenet, but in the EIO file under EIO_BUS I have this: -Name "Virtual1" -ConnectorID "SIM1".
    Under EIO-UNIT there is this: -Name "DP_SIMBOARD1" -UnitType "Virtual" -Bus "Virtual1"\ (there are DP_SIMBOARD2, 3, and 4 also)
    there are 46 separate signals that map to these 4 "SIMBOARDS" for 4 separate dispense equipment #'s but I cannot figure out how these signals are getting out of the robot controller. Does anyone have any experience with this that can point me in the right direction?
    I have pored through a ton of manuals but there is hardly any mention of virtual i/o and really no description of how it is mapped out in the literature I have. :hmmm:

    virtual signals are totally useless for hardware, this is only for software.
    For example : let say that we have a devicenet board and the address is 11. We made a project with this board and used 12 input, 9 output. Then we need the devicenet board for another robot system and we remove the board from our robot. Now our robot have this board as a software but doesn't have this board as a hardware. So we will get error message unless we change the board system as a virtual.

    You can use all virtual signals in your software system without any hardware.

    Thanks for the help guys. No wonder I couldn't figure out how they got mapped out, because they don't. I had assumed that because this backup was taken from a working system that everything must be functional. I never saw the existing robots in cycle so I am not sure how they were actually handling this. All of these virtual I/O signals were for communicating with a sealer dispense unit.
    So once I have the system built I just need to map them to my DNET and will be good to go I guess.

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