The IEC 60870-5-104 module connects Ignition 8.1 and 8.3 to telecontrol stations: RTUs, substation gateways and telecontrol units. Ignition acts as the controlling station (the master). The module was beta-tested on a Siemens SICAM A8000 together with BN Automation AG and is ready for productive use.
What it does today
Values the way IEC 104 intends: reported, never polled
- Every measured value, single point and double point reaches its Ignition tag as soon as the station reports it. If a value changes twice
within a second, both changes arrive. - The station's own time stamps carry through for time-tagged types; you set the station's time zone, because IEC 104 time tags carry no
offset. - Supported types: single and double points, normalised, scaled and floating-point measured values, step positions (e.g. tap changers) and
integrated totals (counters).
Browsing the station
- After connecting, a general interrogation fills the tag tree with every point the station reports, typed and ordered by station (common
address). - A point the station sends for the first time later appears on its own.
- A point is shown once, whether the station sends it with or without a time tag.
- Substations behind a master station each get their own folder.
Quality, in full
- Each tag carries the station's quality (invalid, overflow, not topical, blocked, substituted), mapped to Ignition's quality.
- On request, each quality bit is also its own Boolean tag beneath the point. You see every combination, not only the most serious bit, and
can alarm on and historise each bit separately.
Commands
- Single and double commands, and set points (normalised, scaled, floating point).
- Optional select-before-operate.
- A command succeeds only once the station confirms it. A refused command fails immediately, with the station's reason.
Station control from Ignition
- General interrogation on demand, for the whole station or one interrogation group, e.g. from a button in a view.
- Counter interrogation: read, freeze, freeze and reset, or reset counters, also on a schedule.
- Test command and clock synchronisation.
Outages
- A lost connection is detected whether the station closes it or simply goes silent.
- A dedicated station-failure tag turns true, and every other tag turns Bad while keeping its last value.
- The module reconnects on its own and interrogates the station again, after which every tag is current and Good, with no restart.
Private (vendor-specific) messages
- Messages in the private range of the standard (types 128 to 255), such as SICAM's system telegrams (type 135), are received and appear in
Ignition as tags carrying the raw message bytes. They can be stored or trigger events.
Also
- Network discovery of stations, Ignition 8.3 only, and only after your explicit go-ahead.
- All IEC 104 link timers adjustable.
- A protocol audit log.
- Licence diagnosis in the gateway.
- Manuals in English and German.
Heading
What's coming :
- TLS (IEC 62351)
- IEC 60870-5-101 over serial lines.
- Decoding private messages
Many vendors use the private range of IEC 104 for diagnostics, configuration or status messages of their own; SICAM's system telegrams are one example. Today these arrive in Ignition as raw bytes. The driver can already take plug-in decoders that turn such messages into named, typed tags, and the first one, for SICAM system telegrams, is in preparation.
We'd like to hear from you:
- Which systems do you run? Tell us which RTUs, gateways or control systems send private messages in your plant, so we can decide which decoders to build next.
- Can you provide documentation of the message formats? The layouts are rarely public. Vendor documentation, or recorded telegrams with an explanation, help us most.
Get in touch here in the forum or via contact@toddysoft.com.