Has anybody tried to connect FieldPoint devices to WinCC (Siemens visualization software)

[Steffen 693]

via TCP IP and OPC?

[Aaron_G]

Steffan,

I have not used WinCC but the following information should help. First of all, it will not be possible for WinCC to directly speak via TCP/IP to FieldPoint Ethernet modules. This is because the modules use a protocol that is proprietary to National Instruments. Assuming that WinCC has built-in OPC client ability, it should be fairly easy to talk to the FieldPoint OPC Server. The FieldPoint OPC Server uses the information from the last saved/accessed IAK file in FieldPoint Explorer (can also be set to a particular file using a registry key, see the NI KnowledgeBase Article #1MGHBVLK). I am including getting started information on the FieldPoint OPC Server.

Regards,
Aaron

The FieldPoint OPC server conforms to the OPC Data Access 2.0 standard.
OPC (OLE for Process Control) is an industry standard device interface
specification that provides interoperability between field devices such as
FieldPoint and application software packages. The FieldPoint OPC server,
like the other FieldPoint interfaces, imports the I/O Items that you
configured in FieldPoint Explorer and makes them available as OPC Items
to any OPC client. Because OPC is based in part on Microsoft�s DCOM
(Distributed Component Object Model), it is even possible for an OPC
client on one computer to access FieldPoint hardware connected to the
serial port of another computer if the two computers are networked
together.
OPC clients might differ in the features they offer and their presentation
of the OPC interface for the FieldPoint OPC server. Refer to the
documentation on using the OPC client features of your application for
detailed instructions on how to access an OPC server. However, the basic
steps involved are similar for most OPC client applications.
Follow these steps to use the FieldPoint OPC server:
1. Launch your OPC client.
2. Open the FieldPoint OPC server, National
Instruments.OPCFieldPoint from the OPC client.
This server was registered with Windows when you installed the
FieldPoint software. OPC clients should be able to show you a list
of available registered servers, but you might have to type this name
in yourself. The OPC client might automatically connect to the server
when you select it, but if you are given the option to explicitly connect
to the FieldPoint OPC server, you should do so.
3. Create a group.
Groups are a collection of I/O Items. Some OPC clients might not give
you the option of creating groups, or they might be created for you.
4. Select the I/O Items, which you configured in FieldPoint Explorer, that
you want to read or write as a part of this group.
Many OPC clients can use the Browse Address Space feature of
the FieldPoint OPC server to show you a list of all of the I/O Items
you configured in FieldPoint Explorer. However, if the OPC client youare using does not support this feature, you might need to type the Item
IDs of the I/O Items directly. The naming convention of the FieldPoint
Item IDs is Comm resource name\Device Name\I/O Item name
where the Comm resource name, Device name, and I/O Item name are
the names given in FieldPoint Explorer. For example, an Item ID
associated with one of the I/O Items might be the following:
FP Res\FP-TC-120 @1\Channel 0
In most cases, the preceding steps are all that is required to configure an
OPC client to read from I/O Items of the FieldPoint OPC server. In some
cases, the OPC client might require more information about the FieldPoint
OPC server. The following list contains additional information about the
FieldPoint OPC server, which you might find helpful.
� The FieldPoint OPC server does not require an access path. Some OPC
clients might expect the access path to be included in the Item ID name
or might request the access path when you select I/O Items. You should
be able to leave the access path blank (empty string).
� The FieldPoint OPC interface is an out of process server.
� The FieldPoint OPC server supports both synchronous and
asynchronous reads and writes.
� The FieldPoint OPC server uses the GetErrorString method to return
error and diagnostic messages from the FieldPoint server and
hardware. OPC clients that do not support this method might give you
error messages like �Bad, non-specific� along with an error code.
Some OPC clients that do not support this GetErrorString method
might still provide a way for you to manually look up the FieldPoint
message corresponding to the error code using the method.