How to Proceed

The devices are very easy to parameterize in just a few steps. To set up communication, proceed as follows:

Basic Configuration

To be able to communicate with the device via TCP/IP, the device needs an IP address. How to assign the address is described in the Basic Configuration section.

Configuring the connection

For every hardware from which you want to read data or to which you want to write data, you create a connection to the device by using the configuration software. This connection defines the access path to the hardware, i.e. the channel between the two communication partners. All the parameters needed for the communication between the device and the hardware are defined in the respective dialog boxes. The protocols that are supported by the communication partner (e.g. S7 protocol and RFC 1006) are provided for selection. To access specific hardware, you specify the destination addresses (e.g. IP address and port numbers, or MAC address and TSAP). You can also choose whether or not writes are basically allowed over this connection.

See the New Connection section.

Connect OPC client to OPC server

Before the OPC server and OPC client can exchange data with each other, a connection must be established between the two. The initiative always starts from the OPC client, which uses the "Connect" function to connect to the server. The access rights are set via the DCOM settings.

The Prog-ID, or name of the OPC server is called:

         Tani OPC server

Configure OPC client

In the OPC client, the data points are either selected via tag browsing or entered via a name. The data points address the hardware via the item syntax. The addressing can be absolute or symbolic. For addressing, Access Path Name and Item Name are specified. The Access Path Name corresponds to the connection name (see OPC Server Configuration). For absolute addressing, the protocol-specific item syntax must be adhered to.

See Item Syntax.

Symbolic addressing

For symbolic addressing, the symbol file is used in the OPC server.

The symbols can either be entered manually (see Symbol List ) or imported via Symbol Import.

See also S7 Symbol Import and Modbus Symbol Import.

The defined symbolic item names are then displayed automatically (prerequisite: OPC client supports alias browsing).

OPC Test Client

For initial tests, the OPC client installed together with the OPC server can be used. This client is very easy to use, so that first data points can be read from the hardware immediately.

See OPC client

Diagnostics

To diagnose the connections, you can use the Diagnostics window, which is described in the Online Diagnostics section.

Logger

The Logger is provided for recording error events that have occurred in the device.