M580 Modbus TCP Client Q&A

[ANF-Energy]

Thanks to Lt. Commander RooseR for his assistance in setting up Modbus TCP client in another post.

My manager now has two follow up questions and we use the BMEH582040:

1) Does the IO Scanner run independently of the software tasks? 

2) Is there a limit to the number of devices the IO Scanner can poll?

For the second question, the Modicon M580 Hardware Reference Manual states the BMEH582040 can have a maximum of 64 "distributed devices" but we want to confirm that is max number for the IO scanner, not an overall device number including other type of communication.