Trouble connecting to an OPC server

[JasperS]

Hi again all, haven't been at the office for a while.

Just wanted to let you know we (Martijn at the NI side helped a lot!) figured out what is the problem here.

My mass spectrometer boasts an OPC 3.0 server.

LabVIEW DSC boasts an OPC 3.0 client.

However, they cannot communicate due to having different implementations (interfaces).

It is impossible to find out from logs/error messages what exactly is the problem, so there is no hope of a dedicated fix. Connecting to this device may or may not work for future versions of LabVIEW.

I worked around the issue by buying the Kepware LinkMaster program ($995), and having it act as a bridge.

LinkMaster CAN connect to the mass spectrometer, and LabVIEW CAN connect to LinkMaster solving the problem at a small cost in performance.

Also note that the NI OPC servers can also connect to the mass spectrometer, so this software also can be used as an OPC bridge.

However, NI OPC servers currently does not support arrays when used as an OPC-DA bridge, making it useless for my application.

In short, be VERY careful in assuming LabVIEW can connect to a device through OPC.

It can be costly both in time and in money to get it operational.

[IndianaHelium]

JasperS,

Some time has passed since this thread, but I wanted to know if you could provide a few more details about how you discovered that both LabVIEW and the MassSpec (PrismaPlus) don't speak the same OPC DA V.3.  I have previously written a OPC DA V.1 version of the prisma plus control code when I was having trouble getting the registry settings correct on a 64-bit OS.  I thought I had surmount the hurdle when I could find the Infinicon device under registered OPC servers with DSC...but apparently the "No Known Value" problem relates to the incapatibility of the two OPC DA 3 protocols? 

If so, that's a major bummer.  I was looking forward to the error handling capabilities of the DSC module.

Thanks,

Jeremy