I recently encountered the use of Rockwell RSNetworx to create an Ethernet/IP scanlist for an R-30iB (v8.3). This happened b/c I needed to connect a Balluff EIP-502-105-R015 directly to the robot's EIP Scanner, and Balluff's tech support told me this could only be accomplished by using RSNetworx.
After getting it done, though, I'm not sure Balluff was correct about this. Dowloading the scanlist from RSNetworx into the robot completely wipes out any EIP settings that were already present, but once that was done, I was able to see the module parameters in the pendant's EIP menu the same as if they had been entered by hand. And I was able to add an additional module (a simpler Turck unit that didn't need RSNetworx) by hand via the pendant afterwards, without causing any issues with the RSNetworx-created entries.
That said, the Balluff unit shows up in the robot as 4 different adapters (only the first of which was activated). I'm not sure if this was just "cruft" created as a side effect of RSNetworx, or something else.
I don't have the time to experiment with this robot, unfortunately, but I'm curious what other people have encountered. Are there I/O modules which must have RSNetworx to connect to the R30, or are these modules just so complex (or so badly documented) that trying to extract the correct settings from the EDS file to enter on the pendant just becomes nearly impossible?