Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley User Manual
Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley - User's Manual For additional information on this manual, this OPC server, or Matrikon, please contact: Address: Matrikon 1800, 10405 Jasper Avenue Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T5J 3N4 Phone: 780-448-1010 Fax: 780-448-9191 Web: http://www.matrikon.com Sales: drivers@matrikon.com Support: support@matrikon.com CONFIDENTIAL The information contained herein is confidential and proprietary to Matrikon.
Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................5 1.1 System Requirements..........................................................................................................................................................
Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley 4.5.2 Active State ...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................26 4.5.3 Data Display....................................................................................................................................................................................................
Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley 1. INTRODUCTION This document is the user’s manual for the Matrikon OPC Server for Allen-Bradley PLCs. This server is an OPC™ compliant program that allows access to Allen-Bradley ™ PLC registers. The product has the following features: • Fully compliant with OPC™ Data Access Specification 1.
Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley Client Application Client Application Client Application OPC Interface OPC Server OPC Server OPC Server Device A Device B Device C Once an OPC server is written for a particular device, it can be reused by any application that is able to act as an OPC client. OPC servers use Microsoft’s OLE technology (also known as the Component Object Model, or COM) to communicate with clients.
Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley 2. GETTING STARTED This section guides you through the process of setting up a Matrikon OPC Server for real-time data access. Please follow the instructions carefully to avoid problems. 2.1 INSTALLATION The installation program for a Matrikon OPC Server comes on either CD-ROM or 3½” floppy disks. Insert the media in the drive and choose Add/Remove Programs from the Control Panel. Click Install and follow the instructions from the Installation Wizard.
Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley occurs, simply run a newer installation again to ensure that the official DLLs are installed. 2.1.3 STANDARD OPC SERVER BROWSER In compliance with OPC standards, Matrikon OPC Servers install and register the official OPC Server Browser in the Windows NT SYSTEM32 directory. This file contains version information to avoid overwriting a newer file with an outdated one.
Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley OPCDAAUTO.DLL 2.1.7 Matrikon OPC Automation Component INSTALLATION OPTIONS Just before the installation program finishes, it offers two additional options. One option specifies whether the server should be installed as an NT service instead of a local executable. The other option provides a means to restore the older “ProcessX.OPC.Device” program ID to retain compatibility for clients that were coded to use earlier versions of the server. 2.
Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley 3. CONFIGURATION Matrikon OPC Servers require a very small amount of configuration to function properly. This section describes how to create a configuration for your OPC Server using the supplied PSTCFG utility application. It begins with a generic discussion of using PSTCFG, and is followed by specific details on configuring devices supported by this OPC Server. 3.
Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley PSTCFG.EXE PSTCFGMatrikon.OPC.Device.# Matrikon.OPC Note The second parameter specifies which OPC server is to be configured. A mechanism in the utility prevents more than one copy of itself from connecting to the same OPC server. The main configuration window displays a tree- view of objects configured in the server. Select an object to display its current configuration, which appears on the right- hand side of the window.
Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley 3.2 SERVER CONFIGURATION Select “Server Configuration” in the tree view and choose Define New… from the Edit menu. The Insert New Object dialog box appears. Choose the desired type of object from the list and click OK. Different objects may be available depending on which object is currently selected in the tree view. Note Once an object is selected, its configuration panel appears.
Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley items under this object. Object names are automatically converted to title case for display purposes. The Description field can contain up to 63 characters of text for reference purposes. The Enabled checkbox specifies whether or not communication should be enabled for an object. Normally it should be checked.
Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley The upcoming section contains further information on the specific types of objects available for this OPC server, and how to configure them. 3.3 ALLEN BRADLEY Click ‘configure’ on the control panel, or select ‘Configure…’ after right clicking on the tray icon.
Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley 3.4 DEFINE AN ALLEN-BRADLEY PLC Click ‘New’ on the ‘Edit’ menu to define a new PLC. When defining an Allen-Bradley PLC, the following panel will appear: The following table describes the settings found in this panel: Setting PLC Type Description Select the Allen-Bradley PLC type. If your specific PLC type does not appear, select the closest match. IP Address Enter the Hostname (found in the ‘hosts’ file or using a DNS server) or the TCP/IP Address.
Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley Setting Description PLC Station Enter the PLC station address in octal. Reply Timeout Enter the maximum time, in milliseconds, that the server should wait for a response from the PLC. Retries Enter the maximum count of additional attempts the server should make after a message has timed out. Delay Enter the time, in seconds, that the server should wait after communication has failed before attempting communication again.
Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley In the "Insert New Alias" dialog box, enter a name for the alias and the item path (item ID) for the OPC item that it references. Click the ellipsis button to browse for available item ID's on the server. Click Save to save the alias, or click "Save & Create New" to configure another one. Select the “Default to new” checkbox to make the “Save & Create New” button the default control when you press Enter, rather than Save.
Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley Scaling Algorithm Linear (x − Raw Low ) Square Root Scaled High − Scaled Low + Scaled Low Raw High − Raw Low Scaled High − Scaled Low + Scaled x − Raw Low Low Raw − Raw High Low Reverse Algorithm Raw High − Raw Low + Raw Low Scaled High − Scaled Low (x − Scaled Low ) Raw High − Raw Low + Raw Low (Scaled High − Scaled Low )2 (x − Scaled Low )2 Gain/Offset Gain ⋅ x + Offset x − Offset Gain Expres
Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley 3.7 DCOM C ONFIGURATION Choose DCOM Configuration from the Tools menu to edit DCOM settings in order to allow clients on remote computers to connect to the server. DCOMCNFG is a standard Microsoft utility and can be started from the command- line as well. Note DCOM security settings are stored in the registry and loaded by COM when a server starts up. Therefore, the OPC server must be shut down and restarted for DCOM configuration changes to take effect.
Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley 3.9.1 GENERAL The General tab contains settings related to the configuration of a server. Select the “Load configuration on start-up” checkbox and enter a filename in the edit box below it to have the server automatically use the specified configuration file when it is launched. Click the ellipsis button next to the edit box to browse for the file.
Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley General Activity Logging records information about the internal workings of the OPC server. It is useful for troubleshooting problems with configuration and device communication. Select the “Enable activity logging” checkbox and choose the desired log level from the drop-down box. Available log levels include Medium, Low, and None. The higher the log level, the more information is recorded. However, server performance may decrease at higher log levels.
Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley More log levels are available for both types of logging which record more detailed information. Contact Matrikon Technical Support for further instructions on how to enable the higher log levels. The Matrikon OPC Delegator is a useful tool for logging OPC client/server communication. It enhances the server Interface Activity Logging by loading up in the client application and recording the client-side transactions. It can also be used with other OPC servers.
Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley 4. MATRIKON OPC E XPLORER Matrikon OPC Explorer is a general-purpose OPC client. It is included with all Matrikon OPC Servers to ensure that users always have a reliable means to test the capabilities of the software. Choose Matrikon OPC Explorer from the Start menu, directly under the Programs folder, to start the program. 4.1 VIEW AVAILABLE OPC S ERVERS Matrikon OPC Explorer is an OPC client application.
Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley 4.3 ADD OPC GROUPS Choose “Add Group” from the Server menu to create a new OPC group on the connected OPC server. Enter a name for the group. If the edit box is left blank then the OPC server will assign a unique name for the group. Change the other settings as desired and click OK to create the group. Choose Properties from the Group menu to change these settings after the group is created.
Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley 4.4.1 ITEM ID All OPC items must be identified by an item ID. This identifier is a server-specific string of characters that uniquely identifies a source of data to an OPC server. More than one OPC item may refer to the same item ID at the same time. Enter the item ID in the Item ID edit box. Click the button next to this edit box to bring up the Tag Generator – a utility for creating large numbers of tags that follow a known pattern.
Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley 4.4.4 REQUESTED DATA TYPE All OPC items have a native (“canonical”) data type. That is to say, there is a default format to the data that the server supplies for an item. When creating OPC items, client applications can specify a requested data type for each item. The OPC server will attempt to covert any data from the item to this format if possible.
Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley Although the OPC server may supply data changes to Matrikon OPC Explorer at the update rate of the group, a global setting specifies the refresh rate for the display in OPC Explorer. Choose “Update Speed” from the View menu and select one of the four available options: High, Normal, Low, or Paused. If the update speed is “Paused” then the user will have to refresh the display manually (F5). In the item display, the Value field shows the real-time value for the item.
Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley 4.5.6 DEAD-BAND Some OPC servers support dead-band for updates from analog data sources. The dead-band value is a percentage of full-scale deflection and so the high and low limits for the item must be known ahead of time. Dead-band only affects updates between an OPC client and a server. It has no effect on communication between an OPC server and its respective device(s). 4.5.
Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley 4.7 OPTIONS Choose Options from the View menu to display the Options dialog box. Users can change certain aspects of OPC Explorer’s behavior with these options. Click the Defaults button to restore the original settings 4.7.1 GENERAL Use the Errors checkboxes to specify whether the error dialog box should be displayed when COM or OPC errors occur, or when errors occur for individual items.
Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley 5. MATRIKON OPC AUTOMATION COMPONENT The Matrikon OPC Automation Component enables developers to access OPC data from client applications developed using Automa tion tools such as Visual Basic, VBA, and VB Script. Developers should be proficient in Visual Basic before trying to use this component. To use the component through early binding, add the “Matrikon OPC Automation 2.0” type library to the list of references in the project.
Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley 6. TROUBLESHOOTING The following sections address some of the most common problems encountered while using this OPC server. Please check the following list before contacting Matrikon Technical Support. • Problem: The OPC server stops updating the client with item values after two hours. Solution: The demonstration period for the server has expired. Check that the correct HASP hardware key is securely fastened to the parallel port.
Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley Solution: Either set the identity for the OPC server to the interactive user, or else consider run the server as an NT service. See the section on DCOM for more information. • Problem: After installing an older OPC server, DA 2.0 asynchronous I/O no longer works. Solution: The old installation program installed and registered its own (older) version of the OPC proxy/stub DLL.
Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley Appendix A - ITEM ID SYNTAX 6.1 ADD ITEMS The last step before reading and writing data is to add items to your group. This is done by providing an Access Path and Item ID pair. The server uses this information to find the data you are interested in. If your client supports server browsing, you may not need to provide an Item ID, since you can point and click to specify an Access Path and Item ID from the server browser.
Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley Appendix B - PERFORMANCE Currently, there are no performance specs for this OPC server Page 34 of 49
Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley Appendix C - DISTRIBUTED COM (DCOM) DCOM is an object protocol that enables COM components (such as OPC clients and servers) to communicate directly with each other across a network. A certain amount of configuration is required on the system where the OPC server is installed to allow remote clients to connect to it over the network. Note The following steps are suggestions only.
Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley C.3 SECURITY PERMISSIONS The most important DCOM settings for an OPC server are the security permissions. Change the default settings (not recommended) and make sure that the OPC server will use these or else change the specific settings for the server (recommended). Either way, make certain that the access and launch permissions for the server are correct. To set the security permissions for an OPC Server first open the DCOM configuration utility.
Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley The Access Permissions contain an Access Control List of principals that are allowed to interact with objects supplied by a server. The Launch Permissions contain an Access Control List of principals that are allowed to start up a server process or service. Include the names of users or user groups from trusted domains that you wish to be able to use the OPC server on this machine. Include the "Everyone" group to allow access to all users on a particular domain.
Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley The procedure to set the launch permissions is similar to the above, but instead of choosing “Allow Access” for a user you would choose “Allow Launch”. The Configuration Permissions contain an Access Control List of principals that are allowed to modify the configuration information for a server.
Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley Evidence indicates that there are problems with the datagram-oriented protocols that can cause memory leaks in DCOM. Therefore, it is strongly recommended that these protocols not be used in the list of default protocols. Datagram-oriented protocols are supported under Windows 2000 (although the DCOM configuration utility allows Note not you to configure them). C.
Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley Appendix D - OPC COMPLIANCE All Matrikon OPC Servers comply fully with the OPC Data Access 2.0 Custom Interface Standard. They also support some of the optional capabilities, including backward-compatibility for the old style of asynchronous communication found in the 1.0a specification. The following provides a technical description of supported features. Optional interfaces appear in square brackets ([]). D.
Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley D.3 SERVER REGISTRATION In compliance with the OPC and COM specifications, Matrikon OPC Servers make the following registry entries under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT when registered on a target system. These entries are removed when the server is unregistered. Registry Key Value Matrikon.OPC.Device Matrikon OPC Server for Device Matrikon.OPC.Device\CLSID {CLSID1} Matrikon.OPC.Device\CurVer Matrikon.OPC.Device.# Matrikon.OPC.
Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley Appendix E - OPC QUALITY FLAGS The OPC quality flags represent the quality of an item’s data value. The lower byte is a bit-field used to convey standard quality values. The high byte is available for vendor-specific use complementary to the standard values. The following table lists the range of valid quality values (ignoring the vendor-specific bits). Please refer to the OPC DA 2.0 specification for further information.
Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley 01010100 01010101 01010110 01010111 84 85 86 87 Uncertain, EU Exceeded + Low Limit + High Limit + Constant 01011000 88 Uncertain, Sub-normal The value is derived from multiple sources, an insufficient number of them are GOOD. 11000000 192 Good, Non-specific The value is good (no specific reason). Good, Local Override The value has been overridden and forced to a manually entered setting.
Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley Appendix F - VARIANT DATA TYPES The following is a list of the constant numeric values for VARIANT data types.
Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley Appendix G - OPC I/O METHODS The following sections contain a more detailed description between the different I/O methods available from OPC servers. Please refer to the OPC DA 2.0 specification for further information. G.1 SYNCHRONOUS VERSUS ASYNCHRONOUS I/O All OPC compliant servers must provide two distinct methods for real-time data access. OPC clients can choose between synchronous and async hronous I/O for their operations.
Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley normal optimization routines, reads from DEVICE should be used sparingly as they may incur a severe performance penalty in the server. A scenario where a synchronous read from DEVICE might be useful is in the case of a utility for altering a series of set points in a device. The client application might create an inactive group with the desired items and perform a DEVICE read it. When the call completes, the item values are as current as possible.
Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley Appendix H - ALIAS CONFIGURATION H.1 SCALING EXPRESSIONS Expression Description Examples ‘text’ Text value (enclosed in single quotation marks). ‘hello’ ‘Joe’’s Alias’ + - * / Addition (or Append), Subtraction, (3 * 7 + 1) / 8 – 2 Multiplication, and Division ‘hi ‘ + ‘there’ = < > <> <= >= Equal To, Less Than, Greater Than, Unequal To, Less or Equal To, Greater or Equal To 3<4 Not And Or Logical Not, Logical And, Logical Or May also be used for binary math.
Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley FORMATNUMER IC(mask, x) Converts the numeric value x to text using the format mask FORMATNUMERIC('####.#', 123.4567) = ‘123.5’ INPUT The incoming value read from OPC INPUT * 3.1415 OUTPUT The outgoing value written to OPC OUTPUT / 3.1415 H.2 CONFIGURATION CSV F ORMAT Comma-delimited text files (CSV) contain records on each line. Commas separate the individual fields in a record.
Matrikon OPC Server for Allen Bradley Indicates which type of scaling is applied to the alias item. The parameters that follow this value depend on the type used. Possible scaling types are 0 (none), 1 (linear), 2 (square root), 3 (gain/offset), and 4 (expression). , , , , Linear or square-root scaling parameters include the raw high and low values, scaled high and low values, and a clamping option.
