I’m using a Rexroth ctrlX CORE PLC with the intention of using Ignition as our HMI platform. Under the OPCUA connections settings page there are no drivers for any Bosch Rexroth products, but I was able to connect using the TCP driver. edit: I am making an OPC UA connection; I was confused, the driver doesn’t factor in to this.
My issue is that the application tags do not show (see attached picture). While I am able to see and toggle them in UaExpert, they do not appear at all in the Ignition Designer or on the quick connect screen. How can I go about troubleshooting this?
You should be making an OPC UA connection to this PLC, not using the TCP driver.
Thanks for the reply, Kevin.
As far as I can tell, I am making an OPC connection. I just used the TCP driver when creating the connection. How should I have added this server?
Well, you should make it like you are in this screenshot. I don’t understand how the TCP driver comes into play at all.
You should be able to browse and add tags from this server in the OPC Browser or the new equivalent (forget what it’s called) from the “+” menu on the tag browser.
edit: the menu entry is “Browse Devices…”
It is like I show in that screen shot. The driver doesn’t factor in, I was confused, sorry.
But this brings me back to my original issue. If I connect with UaExpert I see the ‘app’ tags folder which is how the PLC makes its variables available. If I click “Browse Devices…” that folder does not show up.
Can you show me a screenshot of you actually browsing the server? The original is just showing the Ignition Tag Browser, not any kind of OPC browser.
Ah, and from the UaExpert screenshot I can see the “app” node is a MethodNode - this will not appear or be usable in Ignition.
I see! Thank you again for the help. Unfortunately, that is how the OPC server is. The only other access method right now is via a REST API, so it would seem we will not be able to use ignition at this point.
If you need to call the method nodes then you can do so from scripting.
But if there is no other path to browse to the nodes underneath the “app” MethodNode then you would have to look at their NodeId in UaExpert and create them manually in Ignition instead of drag and drop.
As it is, this server has an invalid address space hierarchy and you should report this to the vendor of the server. If nothing else it is violating the rule that only an ObjectNode or ViewNode can be the source of “Organizes” references - it is not valid for a MethodNode to be integral to the address space hierarchy as you are showing in the UaExpert screenshot.
As a simple test I created a one-line program to toggle a bit. It would appear that it is indeed an integral part and I will pass that along.
FYI, I was testing this on the newest ctrlX Core version (1.20) and it appears that the Node Class has been updated to Object type. I have not yet tested connecting to Ignition Designer to verify the issue is resolved, but hopefully can confirm that in the near future.
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