Which OPC server for B&R PowerPanel PP500?

General Discussion
1

I'm attempting to assist in reading data from a B&R Automation PowerPanel PP500. The gateway has B&R PVI Server, OPC-DA COM Connection, software installed (but the licence key is no longer plugged into the gateway so there is a search taking place).

I did some configuration on this some years ago and remember that the network connection configuration was really quirky as if B&R were running their own network address scheme on top of Ethernet. Each device (including programming devices) had to have a unique B&R address.

Anyway, if they have to replace the PVI Server, what would anyone recommend? KepserverEx doesn't seem to support B&R. I can't find anything on the br-automation.com website.

Thanks.

2

B&R has a fully featured OPC-UA server built into the plc, not the HMI, if the visualisation is the web style that is set up on the hmi, it should be using OPC-UA for the tag comms. If it’s the old one, you can enable it in the plc if you have the original plc project and it’s new enough.

3

Thanks, David.
The response from the German machine builder is,

The B&R Power Panel 500 supports only OPC DA. But for your case you need OPC UA and that’s not compatible with the PP500.

I presume that the PLC doesn't allow a remote OPC server to read values in the way that Ignition's A-B driver can read an A-B PLC.

4

Probably out of luck. New panel time? Customers like shiny?

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