Issue Importing Structs/UDTs from Siemens TIA S7-1500 into Ignition 8.3 via OPC UA

Ignition
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1

Hi everyone,

I’m trying to connect my Siemens S7-1500 PLC to Ignition 8.3 via OPC UA.

When I browse the PLC’s DBs, I can see the Structs and any UDTs present.

The problem occurs when I try to import them: If I select the entire DB to import, Ignition only creates the macro area and generates a JSON that I cannot interpret/use properly.

In other words, I cannot correctly map the Structs and UDTs inside Ignition.

Does anyone know if there’s a proper way to:

  • Fully view Structs and UDTs from the PLC in Ignition?

  • Import them correctly without losing the internal - data structure?

Thanks in advance!

2

I'm not sure I fully understand what you're describing, could you provide screenshots?

Otherwise, you could try enabling "Deprecated Data Type Dictionary Support" for the OPC UA connection to the PLC. OPC UA Connections | Ignition User Manual

3

If you import a struct, ignition will create a document tag with the value be a json with the tags under that struct. You can then extract to tag value with a derived tags.
see this OPC UA struct data type?

4

Hi everyone,

I wanted to share the solution I found — unfortunately the issue was on my side.

The issue was that I was not using the Siemens Enhanced drivers. I initially assumed they were already included with Ignition 8.3.3, but apparently they are not.

Because of that, when I tried connecting using the standard S7-1500 driver or OPC-UA, Ignition was not able to properly import or map the Structs and UDTs from the Siemens PLC.

After downloading and installing the Siemens Enhanced drivers (which unfortunately are not very clearly documented in terms of where to obtain and how to install them), I was able to correctly import and visualize both the structures and UDTs inside Ignition.

There is still one open point that I haven't managed to solve yet: how to properly handle the same situation when using OPC-UA instead of the Siemens driver.