Wondering if anyone in the community would be excited to see a driver that uses the FANUC FOCAS library to collect data from a FANUC controlled CNC machine?
My understanding is that FANUC has provided a C++ library, fwlib32.dll, that can be used to build a software application that can collect data from the control. FANUC has their own software that presumably uses this library and there are 3rd party applications that again, I’m assuming, use this library under the hood to present the data through open protocols like OPC or MTConnect.
Unless I’m missing something, it seems like it would be really nice to have this capability wrapped into a driver for Ignition. Anyone know if something like this already exists? Or a developer willing to take a crack at it?
For the time being, looks like we have to add another layer. If anyone sees it differently, please share.
I’m very green still on the module development front, but based on what I’ve seen and know, I think we need to break outside of Ignition to write some middleware to use those libraries or wait for FANUC to release Java or python libraries to even consider modules or libraries for this in Ignition.
I think the most direct route I know of now is using Kepware and their driver as a 3rd party OPC server.
Yes, when I mentioned OPC, Kepware is what I had in mind. I figured if they can do it, would be nice to bring that capability to Ignition and drop the a dependency. I just don’t have the experience yet to know that it “works flawlessly” but at least that’s encouraging.
I wouldn’t hold your breath for this one. We’re opening up a little to using native libraries, but we don’t usually develop Windows-only solutions (OPC Classic being a notable exception), and on top of that, it seems to require that both the FOCAS library and some other FANUC unsolicited messaging server, available “from your distributor”, already be installed on the PC to function.
More digging: it looks like inventcom, who appear to be the developers of fwlib32, relationship to FANUC unclear to me, also have software called CNCnetPDM and it includes an OPC UA server with connectivity for all these devices: OPC UA Server | CNCnetPDM Manual | Support | inventcom
The one issue I had with the Kepware driver, was the updates lagged sometimes. It turns out that each channel can be configured with something like 255 devices, but the manual suggests one channel per device. Once I did that, the responsiveness was so much better.
I very rarely ever have to mess with it. 99% of the time it is just when I need to add another machine.
If FANUC ever publishes their on-the-wire packet formats, I’d tackle this. No way would I bother with a Windows-only DLL. If Windows has to be in the picture, I’d just use Kepware.
I'm trying to use Kepware with Fanuc Focas driver, however I learned that it requires Focas DLL files to run. Did you have to copy DLL files on the Kepware host as well?
OP here. Yes you need to provide the FOCAS dll to Kepware, they are not provided with the Kepware installation, presumably due to a licensing issue. I believe we purchased the libraries from FANUC. I don’t recall specific licensing terms. They mailed me a CD. I had to ask for a download link. . This experience is largely why I made this post in the first place.
. This experience is largely why I made this post in the first place.