DSC tags from serial read on RS485

[LG]

I am working with LabView and DSC for Supervision of a Pilot Plant.
I am able to "read on demand" in LabView Present Value data from some Omron Process indicators (model KN_) and Thermal Regulators (E5E_) located in electrical cabinet using RS485 serial interface, using the Omron protocol called Compoway/F.
Now I need to log the data (together with other analog I/O from SCXI) using DSC; for SCXI it looks not so difficult, but for serial communication... I am not sure about the right way to do it:
1) try to adapt my existing VI for serial "read on demand", also for output commands (Set Points) using Memory Tags for Tag Engine;
2) try to build a server (Vi?!) for this protocol (but this is new to me, I have not too
much time to spend on it and it doesn't look so easy...);
3) find an server example equivalent to the basic ones for Serial Communication Write+Read and work on it... 🙂
Any suggestion ?
Thanks
Luca

[Greg Caesar]

The first thing I would double-check is that no-one already has an OPC Server that talks the Compoway/F protocol you mention. If you do find an OPC Server, then you could simply configure I/O tags to communicate with that OPC Server directly.

If you are unable to find an OPC Server, then I would recommend the first solution you list, creation of memory tags. In this case, you would simply use LabVIEW serial functions to handle the communication, then write/read the resulting data point to a memory tag.

Regards,
Greg Caesar
National Instruments,
Applications Engineer