Can ignition communicate with Keyence PLC?

[PM_p]

Hello,

Does anyone know if ignition can connect to Keyence PLC ( probably KV-7500 or KV-8000 )?

I only see the built-in driver for AB, Omron, and Siemens.

Thanks.

[Kevin.Herron]

Not directly, but it looks like Kepware has a driver for Keyence PLCs and you could make an OPC UA connection to Kepware once you have that set up.

[andrews]

How do you like it?

I asked a rep about it and they told me to stay away from them , support is not there. ironic from a company that is usually great on support for their products.

[pturmel]

I’ve bumped into these. Apparently they are new to the U.S. market, so Keyence techs here aren’t really up to speed.

[alex.ferrell]

The KV-8000A is being marketed as having a built-in OPC-UA server. Could this feature be used to connect Ignition to it? Has anyone tried this or would know if it is possible? I found the Kepware solution but at $1450 for a perpetual license that adds quite a bit of cost to a system.

[pturmel]

I expect to have one of these in my lab soon, specifically to add support to my EtherNet/IP driver. (The documentation is decent.) I'll play with the OPC UA support while I'm at it.

I haven't received the hardware yet, but the OPC UA docs for the KV-8k(A) indicate the following limits:

• 2,000 monitored items, max, but complete structures or arrays count as one (just like structure access in Siemens).

• 200,000 total publishable nodes, counting all leaf nodes of structures and arrays individually. (Simple setting in global variable table in KV Studio selects unpublished/read only/writable for OPC UA.)

• All subscription paces are normalized (rounded up?) to multiples of 50ms.

[Miclah_Koehn]

Did you manage to get this working? I have a KV8000 in my office now, looking to connect it to an edge panel.

Thanks

[pturmel]

The beta is out. I have not made any further changes--not released for production. My sample unit still disconnects pseudo-randomly. I have not gotten any response from Keyence on my (very detailed) bug report.

Please do try the beta, if you don't mind. I'm curious if the disconnection problem is specific to my unit. Data traffic otherwise works.

Automation Professionals' EtherNet/IP Communication Suite V2

Automation Professionals is pleased to announce a beta release of the Keyence KV-8k support mentioned above. For Ignition v8.1+: v2.1.11.240102103 This implementation reads the model code to initialize the span of the various types of device memory, and for KV-8000+, reads the function version to conditionally expand the R device range. All models with built-in EtherNet/IP (KV-5500 and above), models that accept the KV-EP21V comm module (KV-3k & -5k), and the models that accept the KV-NC1EP c…

[Miclah_Koehn]

I installed the module, but it wont work on edge panel unless licensed, and I have not yet purchased a license for this project. If the capability isn't there yet, I may have to go a different route this time. Could I just use OPC? Any pitfalls to that approach with this PLC?

[pturmel]

@Miclah_Koehn

on edge panel unless licensed

And IA does not allow third parties on Edge.

@Miclah_Koehn

approach with this PLC

Not many tags allowed, from what I recall. It does allow access to named variables that aren't allocated in normal global memory, though.

[Miclah_Koehn]

I currently have an Edge panel connected to a KV8000, communicating with OPC, reading and writing to a global variable. Do you know how many tags are allowed? For some reason, it takes forever for a new variable to show up in the designer though. Any idea why?

[pturmel]

@Miclah_Koehn

how many tags are allowed?

So, not as bad as I thought, as long as you make good use of structures.

@Miclah_Koehn

Any idea why?

Not a clue.