# Custom Driver guided example **URL:** \ **Category:** General Discussion\ **Created:** [May 3, 2012, 9:16am UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/custom-driver-guided-example/4406 "2012-05-03T09:16:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![aortiz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/67e7ee/32.png) [@aortiz](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/aortiz)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2012, 9:16am UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/custom-driver-guided-example/4406/1 "2012-05-03T09:16:48Z")
Hi world. I am starting for the very first time with Ignition SDK. In order to achieve my first custom driver which communicates with a simple protocol with quite simple ascii datagrams, I would like to know if any one here or even IA has something like a guided howto/example. I’ve been reading a bit through the WeatherModule\_Gateway and it’s not being quite straight forward at all for me to understand it properly. ☹ Tnx in advance. ---
**Author:** ![Kevin.Herron](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/kevin.herron/32/7259_2.png) [@Kevin.Herron](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/Kevin.Herron)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2012, 2:49pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/custom-driver-guided-example/4406/2 "2012-05-03T14:49:52Z")
The Modbus driver is also included in the SDK, which is a better example of a full-fledged driver. SDK documentation and guides are always a work in progress and I hope to have more info on writing drivers soon. Is there anything in particular you’re getting hung up on? ---
**Author:** ![Greg.Buehler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecc23a/32.png) [@Greg.Buehler](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/Greg.Buehler)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2012, 3:13pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/custom-driver-guided-example/4406/3 "2012-05-03T15:13:06Z")
Just wanted to chime in that the Modbus driver isn’t obvious. If you import the folder set into a workspace the ModbusV2 project is seemingly absent. To add it into my workspace I had to dig for it then manually add the libraries for Ignition. ---
**Author:** ![aortiz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/67e7ee/32.png) [@aortiz](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/aortiz)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2012, 8:52am UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/custom-driver-guided-example/4406/4 "2012-05-04T08:52:50Z")
Thanks for your answer Kevin, I guess you’re talking about the ModbusDriver-v2, isn’t it? Currently we are in a very early stage so, at the moment, no actual hung up, just starting to know the common procedure to develop our own scalable “generic driver” for simple Ascii datagrams. ---
**Author:** ![Kakkerlak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bb73d2/32.png) [@Kakkerlak](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/Kakkerlak)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2012, 7:22pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/custom-driver-guided-example/4406/5 "2012-05-08T19:22:07Z")
I realize you’re already going down the road of writing a custom driver, but I might suggest there are a couple of ways to do this faster with existing OPC-UA products. [omnidssi.com/](http://www.omnidssi.com/) [kepware.com/Products/products\_UCON.asp](http://www.kepware.com/Products/products_UCON.asp) If you spend even a week writing and testing a custom driver, you’ll probably be money ahead using one of these platforms. The decision probably hinges on other factors like your volume of installations, supported operating systems, and driver complexity. ---
**Author:** ![aortiz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/67e7ee/32.png) [@aortiz](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/aortiz)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2012, 7:32am UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/custom-driver-guided-example/4406/6 "2012-05-09T07:32:33Z")
ummmh I see. Indeed we’re not yet developing but still evaluating which way to go on. So currently we are testing OPC Genie (Matrikon) which I guess is quite the same as the alternatives you showed me. So, if you know’em all, as budget is quite limited in our case, let me ask you something: are these 3 alternatives similar in their capabilities? if so, your last one looks fine.