Using RSLinx OPC Server National Instruments. Configuring an Allen Bradley PLC in RSLinx. F3C8DB30B?v=1.0' alt='Serial Communication With Labview Tutorial Pdf' title='Serial Communication With Labview Tutorial Pdf' />Start RS Linx and click on Communications Configure Drivers. The Configure Drivers dialog box appears. Click on the Available Driver Types pull down menu and choose your communication driver from the list. For instance, if you have the regular serial connection, choose RS 2. DF1 devices from the list. Click Add New. 4. Enter any name you want for the driver name in the Add New RSLinx Driver dialog box. Click OK when you are done. Configure the device. Click the Auto Configure button and RSLinx will auto configure the device for you. If the auto configure failed, contact Allen Bradley technical support for help. Welcome to the NI Community From students to rocket scientists, the NI Community allows the NI Ecosystem to work together towards engineering success. In this illustration we will going to wire the MCP2515 CAN BUS Breakout Module, MCP2515 is a standalone controller area network or CAN manufactured by Microchip. The National Instruments Industrial Automation Servers CD has an Allen Bradley RSLinx driver that can communicate with RSLinx through a dynamic link library DLL. LEGO Mindstorms NXT is a programmable robotics kit released by Lego in late July 2006. It replaced the firstgeneration Lego Mindstorms kit, which was called the. Click Help if you need more information about device configuration. Click OK to go to the next step. Now you should be able to see the driver that you just created in the Configured Drivers section of the Configure Drivers dialog box. Make sure there is no error showing and that the Status indicates Running. Click Close. Now you should be able to see your device when browsing the tree. Innovative, stateoftheart data acquisition DAQ, test and measurement solutions. If you do not see your PLC in the list, uncheck the Autobrowse checkbox and click Refresh. When you highlight the items in the window, you should see the little squares in the communication icon blinking, meaning that there is a communication link between the PC and the PLC. Right click your PLC icon and click Configure New DDEOPC Topic. A new access path is added for your server, so when you define the access path in your SCADA software, you have to use the following syntax Access PathItem. You can enter any name you want for the access path. In this example the access path is ML1. Click Done after you are finished, and click Yes when RS Linx prompts you to update the topic. Now you should be able to access all the available registers on your PLC from any OPC client software. With the access path ML1. N7 0 would be ML1. N7 0. Next, test the OPC server just created using RS OPC Test Client. Launch the OPC Test Client from Start Programs Rockwell Software OPC Tools OPC Test Client. Then select File New. Select RSLinx OPC Server and click OK. At this point you should see a blank screen called OPC Test Client RSLinx OPC Server. Select Group Add Group. Enter anything for the group name. Click OK. Now you should be able to see the group in the previous window. Select Item Add Item. For the access path, enter the topic name you defined previously and type the register name you are trying to get data from or writing to. Click the Add Item button and the item name should appear in the left most field, as shown in the illustration. Add all the items you want, and click OK when you are done. You should see the items and value that you just connect to under Item. ID. Back to Top. 2. Connecting Server. Explorer to RSLinx. Launch the Industrial Automation Server Explorer 1. Right click on RSLinx OPC Server and choose Wizard. It is important to choose the In proc Server DLL. RSLinx does not support a Local Server. Click Next to connect to the server. Define the group name and the update rate. Click Next then Finish at the next screen. At this point you should be able to see the green traffic light meaning that Server. Explorer has successfully connected to the OPC server. Create an item by right clicking on the group name that you just created, then click AddEdit Items. The Name DeviceItem can be any string. The Item ID should be in the Access PathItem format. In this example it should be ML1. O0 0. Then click Add. Note If you are using RSLinx 2. Control Logix 5. 00. Series PLC, you should be able to browse and select the registers. However, for all other Allen Bradley PLCs, RSLinx OPC Server does not support browsing, and you will have to manually enter the Device Name and Item ID. Validate all items. Mastering Program Garageband. Click OK, and you should be able to see register data in Server. Explorer. Back to Top. Connecting Lookout to RSLinx. Lookout can connect to the RSLinx OPC server through the OPCClient object. This document assumes that you know Lookout. If you do not have any previous experience with Lookout, then we strongly recommend you to go through the introductory material in the Lookout documentation. Note Lookout currently does not have drivers for the Allen Bradley Control Logix PLCs. First, create a new OPC Client object. Choose Object Create OPC Client. Choose the RSLinx OPC Server. The server is an In Process Server DLL, so make sure that you choose this server type. The browsing method can be either Disabled or Flat. Make the default access path equal to the topic name that you defined in RSLinx. Click OK and open the Object Explorer. Drag and drop the OPCClient. The Insert Expression dialog box should appear. Complete the expression by typing the item you are trying to read from the server, for instance, OPCClient. O0 0. Notice that there is a dot between the tag name and the item name. You can also type the access path by adding the item name. Some servers use the access path, so you can type explicitly, if you want. Another method is to select Edit Database and type the item name in the Member field. Add an alias, but do not use a colon or a dot. In this case, the Object Explorer will have your alias available, so you can drag that and drop it onto your control panel. NOTE Lookout 3. 8 users must define the access path in the description field of the database. Because RSLinx does not support browsing, you have to type the access path manually. The format for that is Topic nameitem. For the example above, use ML1. O0 0. You should also change the Cache Update Rate to at least 2 ms, otherwise your CPU usage will approach 1. Back to Top. 4. Connecting Lab. VIEW to RSLinx. Lab. VIEW itself is not an OPC Client, but it can be used to communicate to OPC Servers through the Data. Socket VIs. Data. Sockets have an OPC layer, allowing you to read and write to an OPC Server from Lab. VIEW or Lab. WindowsCVI. Data. Socket is a technology based on TCPIP composed of two elements the Data. Socket API and the Data. Socket server. The API provides an interface for different data types, converting the data into a stream of bytes that can be sent across a network via TCPIP. To learn more about Data. Socket, visit National Instruments web page at www. The following is a brief example of how to connect to RSLinx OPC Server from Lab. VIEW using our example VI. Launch Lab. VIEW and open opc. National InstrumentsLab. VIEW 6examplescomm folder. Open NI Demo OPC Client. This VI can connect to any OPC Server using Data. Socket connection. Next, connect it to RSLinx OPC Server. Set the Server Name to be RSLinx OPC Server, and the Item Name in the form Access PathItem. In this example we are trying to connect to register O0 0 using access path ML1. RSLinx, therefore the item name would be ML1. O0 0. 4. Click the run button when you are ready. You should see the register data that you just connected to. Back to Top. 5. Connecting the Lab. VIEW DSC Module to RSLinx. Launch Lab. VIEW and open the Tag Configuration Editor by selecting Tools Datalogging Supervisory Contol Configure Tags. Click the Create Tag icon and select Analog Tag. When the Analog Tag Configuration dialog box appears, enter the Tag Name as shown. Click the Connection tab, choose the Tag Access Type, Server Name RSLinx OPC Server in this case, and click the Create button under IO Group. Type in the Group Name and enter the Update Rate and the Deadband, and click OK. Click the Add button in the Analog Tag Configuration dialog box, and enter the Item Name and Access Path. You can either create new tags by clicking the Create Next Tag button in the Analog Tag Configuration window, or click OK to go back to the main window where you should see the items you just created. Save the scf file.