I’m doing a demo for a customer next week and am currently using Kepware with S7-300 PLCs, and it works fine.
But, I’d like to try out the integrated Siemens driver, but couldn’t get it to work with the various instructions I found. Can you provide a step-by-step process for doing this?
Also, will it be possible to import the tags from a flat file? The absolute addresses will be changing, and manually creating tags is not an option. I am already doing it with Kepware, and it would be no problem to change it as needed.
There’s not currently any tag import other than the SQLTags CSV file format.
As for configuring the device in Ignition, there’s only three settings you need to know: Hostname, Rack Number, Slot Number.
If it won’t connect and those are correct we’ll need to look at the logs. If it is connecting then everything is working fine; there’s no browsing or anything with the Siemens drivers. The next step is to make SQLTags that address the tags you want. The addressing format is discussed here.
Let me know if you run into any problems (and what version of Ignition you are using).
Actually one can export the tags from Kepware into csv.
Next step is to manipulate the csv to the right columns etc then import to ignition, have done this loads of times and importing 10000+ tags takes very little time.
I have also successfully exported tags from protools projects and WinCC and WinCC-Flexible projects this way into ignition.
Generally siemens structure tags vs ignition / kepware tags are
DB00.DBX0.0 ->DB00,X0.0
DB00.DBB0 -> DB00,B0
DB00.DBW ->DB00,I0
Using search and replace one can achieve the above very quickly.
Well, the absolute addresses for the tags change with each version of the code, so this won’t be a one time thing. And, I have many PLCs and I want to automate this to a single click of the button.
Right now I export the S7 project to a text file and create the Kepware csv import file with a script in Ignition. I need to do the same thing if I am going to use the built in Siemens driver. How should I approach this? Create a csv file and import the tags through the designer? Or create a query and write the tags directly to the database? I would prefer the latter because then I could fully automate the process and update the tags from a client without opening the designer at all. But, maybe there is something else in your architecture that prevents this?
Lastly, I use dot names in the PLC (they are based on the hierarchy of the udts), so I have something like Machine[1].Motor[2].Running.Status, and Kepware creates folders based on the dots, so the tag appears as Machine_1/Motor_2/Running/Status. When I export the SQL tags from Ignition, I can see that it does something with these folders, but can’t really see a pattern. Should I just skip the folder approach and create the tags in a long list like Machine_1_Motor_2_Running_Status? Otherwise, how does the tag structure work in Ignition if I wanted to create the csv file with scripting?
Ignition does the same with folders however it creates the structure slighly different.
The approach of importing them from siemens text file to ignition csv import is doable.
just create a tag with your folder structure in ignition then see how it does it in the csv.
From memory:
there is one line that defines the folder. the following lines define the tags within that folder.
The easiest approach is to generate the csv file and then import the csv file in the designer.
If you are using the external tags database provider instead of the internal tag provider then one could write a script to import them into the database diretly.