This little known but easy to use utility can save literal hours (and many recurring headaches) by allowing the users to backup known working RSLinx configuration(s.)įirst, click your Windows “Start” button, and navigate to “All Programs – Rockwell Software – RSLinx”
Whenever I hear stories like these, I immediately open up the “RSLinx Backup and Restore” utility and show the client how to use it. If you need more information or have more questions let me know.Over the years many people have related a story to me which goes something like, “I spent hours getting RSLinx setup just right, and then someone on another shift messed up my settings.” Or, “I haven't had to connect to that machine in months, but every time I do it seems to take hours to figure out how to setup RSLinx to communicate to it.” Net, even in NodeJS such as this one OPC-UA – NodeJS
OAS and Kepware has CIP net drivers to connect with Rockwell PLCs.
You must forward to use OPC UA protocol or any CIP Net communication driver to the Rockwell PLC. The delay to write and read are ridiculous. Depending of which data and how time-critical it is do not use OPC DA or DDE topics.There are several connection gateways on the market, such as Kepware and OAS which does the communication to the data you need and send to the destination you need (e.g. If this application is a solution to the customer, probably you do not need to reinvent the wheel.If you only want to read and write tags for education purposes, this is a nice way to comprehend how to program a OPC client.This is not for C#, however, you can have a better picture to make the same in C#. If you have a TechConnect valid user, you can search for the ID QA769 to reach the forum topic: RSLinx Classic: Monitor Data in Excel using DDE.
Long story short, to achieve the communication to the PLC and get data to your C# application, you must install the RSLinx Classis on your system, Setup a DDE/OPC Topic, your C# application must start a client connection to the OPC Server from RSLinx, then you set the methods to read or write the tag data. Rockwell on the Knowledge Base has examples of it for VBA and Excel, and probably for. Important: there is a defined structure to fetch the data. I’ve done this long time ago, but as far as I remember, you setup a OPC client on C#. This topic has a name, and this will be important to communicate. To setup the communication you must configure a DDE/OPC Topic and point it to the PLC controller. What the RSLinx Classic does is in rough words connect to the PLC over Ethernet/IP (or other communication protocol) and bridge the data as OPC server, which can be reached from OPC Clients. To enable the OPC communication you must have at least the RSLinx Classic installed, it has a built in OPC DA server.
The RS Linx Enterprise or the FactoryTalk Linx Enterprise (the version depends on which FTV you are using), is to communicate the HMI Client to the PLC. We also use RSLinx on our laptop when we want to access the PLC or HMI using the respective programming software.įor your system to reach into our PLC data table, the RSLinx Gateway software will need to be installed and configured on your computer which is running your software and that needs to access our PLC.įirst of all, to communicate with any Rockwell PLC, it's mandatory to have at least the RSLinx Classic. The communications between our PLC and HMI is inherently built into the devices and configured using RSLinx Enterprise which is installed on our programming laptop.
We currently do not have a copy of RSLinx installed in our system onsite.
This is what the client said in the email. I can give you a reference of what the client is demanding. I have found the OPC CLient code in the C# but I can't find how should I connect it to the OPC server and is there any testing simulation available that could give me the testing data that I would be receiving from client's PLC. My task is to write a code in C# that sends and receive tags from/to their communication server OPC server) RSLINX which will be connected to the client's PLC. I am new to PLC Programming and I do not know the basic of it.