Dear all, I have a question about possible models of hardware elements, such as CAEN PS for instance. I have connected a CAEN PS using the OPC UA facility. When I check the tags automatically created by the designer once the communication has been properly established, I see a sort of “raw” tags/information coming from the PS. But I do not see any type of modeling. Which basically means there is not a library (or at least I do not find it) that can provide the information coming from and going to this specific supplier in a more coherent way. This library should be able to include the different hardware models, create instances of the devices with appropriate addressing and even setting in default specific tags separated in groups, normally 3 groups:
– Actual tags --> Values coming from the crates
– Settings tags --> command which are sent from the panels or from the operators to the crate
– Readback settings tags --> this should be a feedbackthat confirms the commands I pass have reached the server.
While the actual and the readbacksettings are associated to the OPC UA server, the settings group the user commands.
This is a possible modeling, not neccesary the only one, but the issue is that I do not see any modelling of tags at all and this makes that the read out/read in of values, alarms… is not so appropriate. Unless of course I am missing specific hardware modelization based on predefined hardware, but just as I see the default tags, it is quite difficult to split what it comes from the Ps, what I send and if this has been properly received by the server or not. Is there any modelling infrastructure able to establish a tags structure depending on the hardware model?
Thanks so much in advance,
Best Regards,
Patricia
Not a lot of information to go on.
- What model of PS?
- Are you connecting directly to the power supply’s OPC Server or is there an intermediate OPC Server?
Thanks so much for your prompt answer.
Concerning the PS model of CAEN,these are the ones we use:
Model: SY4527 with board models A1580H and A1526N
Model: SY5527 and boards A7030DP
Regarding the power supply connection, I see what you mean. I am connecting through an intermediate OPC server which “predefines” the variables associated to each board/channel in the following way:
and these are the variables or the tags I get. So I guess I should first establish the connection with the power supply without any intermediate server, is this correct?. Could you please guide me through the documentation that will help me on this?
Thanks so much,
Patricia
Sorry, It has not copied the variables structure:
Channel index=“0” name=“Chan000”
ReadOnlyProperty dataType=“F” name=“IMon” propertyName=“IMon”
ReadOnlyProperty dataType=“I” name=“Status” propertyName=“Status”
[…]
I'm not certain it's possible. Vendors tend to make everything as proprietary as possible so you have to buy their stuff. 
If you're seeing the tags in their OPC Server, I'm afraid that's as close to a structure that you you will receive.
Ok, thanks Jordan, then I should assume Ignition does not provide any CAEN module able to modeling the tags associated to inputs (tags providing info from the CAEN to the user) nor outputs (tags providing info to the CAEN from the user). Whatever the opc server provides is all that I have.
Thanks for the info
Patricia
Yes, but as long as the server provides all the data you need the structure doesn't really matter, does it?
Make a nice structure using Ignition's tag system instead. It doesn't matter what the structure of the tags are in the OPC server except for while you're browsing it at first to build your model in Ignition.
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