Kepware Advanced Tags Manual

[Gano Richardson]

TheAdvanced Tags plug-in for KEPServerEX offers a convenient, cost effective, and straightforward way to generate new data and aggregate existing data into information suitable for high-level archive and analysis. Using Advanced...

The Advanced Tags plug-in for KEPServerEX offers a convenient, cost effective, and straightforward way to generate new data and aggregate existing data into information suitable for high-level archive and analysis. Using Advanced Tags, users can measure the duration of operations, totalize events, perform averages over a group of sensors, set trigger conditions for data acquisition, and combine machine conditions to generate an overall machine state. These capabilities are extremely valuable for future analytics.

Proper operations analysis requires that industrial control applications deliver an array of data. This data often needs some form of calculation to identify deficiencies and help determine whether operations are functioning properly. The Advanced Tags plug-in for KEPServerEX will help improve decision-making and efficiency in your industrial control applications. Get started now with easy-to-use, pre-defined tags.

Average Tag - Calculates the average value of a tag over a defined time.

Complex Tag - Groups multiple tags of varying data types as a single complex item or structure.

Link Tag - Links data between different protocols.

Maximum Tag - Reads and persists a tag's maximum value over a defined time.

Minimum Tag - Reads and persists a tag's minimum value over a defined time.

Oracle Cumulative Tag - Determines the difference between the current and previous values. This tag is defined by Oracle and is available to all OPC Client applications.

Derived Tag - Uses basic scripting and standard Logic and Math functions to provide calculations exceeding those of pre-defined tags. They have the ability to control the frequency and conditions with which an expression will be evaluated, and also enable users to incorporate more complex equations into their applications. To aid implementation, an expression validation tool is included along with expression examples (located in the Advanced Tags manual).

For an inexpensive operational analysis tool, consider using the Advanced Tags plug-in for KEPServerEX along with the DataLogger plug-in and any ODBC-supported database. KEPServerEX also supports DDE connectivity, thus allowing the powers of Microsoft Excel and Advanced Tags to combine.

Bu formda istenen bilgileriniz hizmetlerimizin sunulabilmesi, teknik destek, iletişim vb. durumlar iin istenmektedir. Tm verileriniz KVKK (Kişisel Verilerin Korunması Kanunu) tarafından koruma altındadır.

In this example for the gateway you have to choose the ip address of the master unitronics plc but this is only needed I think if communication is between Unitronics plcs so leave the TCP settings in this block as they should be four your local network.

Did no projects with kepware and Unitronics but in our plant we have some Unitronics plc,s besides TI(CTI) PLC,s connected to Control Maestro(Wizcon) scada using Kepserver so this is why I could quickly made a simple test.

It would be helpful to submit your ladder and screenshot of tags settings, that's probably where the problem is. If you did all as in Henny's post maybe you have a problem in network. Did you try to ping V570? Also try pinging with cable disconnected, maybe you have two devices with same IP address.

I got Kepware pulling data using basically what's shown in the last photo. However, we have dual IO servers requiring that there be two active modbus connections. Only one will connect with this setup, any idea how to enable two servers to pull data via modbus?

So this is how I currently have it. Originally I had Socket 0 with TCP and port 502 (slave) and that by itself didn't seem to work. I added the last instruction 'Modbus IP Config' and set the Network ID to 20 etc. I'm just confused, do I need both of those instructions? Do I only need the Modbus IP Config? And if I want to open two sockets do I use two Modbus IP Config instructions? Set them both to Network ID 20 or two different ID's?

Yes you need to initialize and configure each socket you're going to use for MODBUS IP. Pick any two sockets, though I would leave Socket 1 initialized to Port 20256 to use for a VisiLogic connection. I would keep Socket 2 at the default of Port 502 and initialize Socket 3 to Port 503, but it doesn't really matter - just don't initialize two sockets to the same port number, keeping in mind the default assignments.

You also need to configure each socket you're going to use for MODBUS IP with a MODBUS IP Configuration block. Don't duplicate addresses. The network ID isn't important with TCP, as I understand it, but you can assign them any way you want.

Curious how mine is working then if you need to initialize and configure each socket. I initialize socket 0 (502) and then configure Socket 2 (502). Seems like maybe socket 2 is working without any initialization?

Socket 2 defaults to Port 502. You have both Socket 0 and Socket 2 set to Port 502. Sometimes that works, but it is very bad practice to do that. Unitronics generally recommends that you Initialize all 4 sockets, even if don't plan to use them all so that you can be sure there are no conflicts.

OK, these are the new rungs. So the default for socket 3 is TCP(20257) but I've initialized it to TCP 503. It still shows up in the config as TCP(20257) though. Guess that's just documentation saying thats the default? See any issues with this? Forgive any mistakes, I have no experience with Unitronics.

There is no need to pack your ladder rungs so much. I like to tell people that Unitronics does not charge you by the rung. Break those logic pieces into separate rungs. What you have should work, but new users often get in trouble with overly complicated ladder rungs that don't compile the way you think they would. I would place each Socket Initialization, with its accompanying MODBUS Config into a separate rung (with SB 2 in front), and each SCAN_EX block into a separate rung.

OK, I can redo all that. Simplify it. Again, I have zero experience with Unitronics so using the software, moving stuff around and creating new rungs is all foreign to me, coming from Allen Bradley background.

1) Please do NOT place multiple logic threads in a single ladder rung. You did not break them up into separate rungs. The whole point of ladder rungs is to separate out the logic so there are no conflicts or confusion within a logic statement.

Yes, used ladder logic in AB of course but I think things are defined differently. Looks like what you're calling a rung is the whole blank space between the lines with the number 1,2,3 etc. And what I'd call a rung you're referring to as a logic thread. AB constructs the rung lines automatically as you drop in instructions. I believe this format is similar to Modicon and others I've used on occasion. Calling the whole space or rung a 'Net'. Just different and I have to orient myself and figure it out.

After all that neither IO server can poll the PLC now. Before all this I was able to at least get one of them to poll the PLC successfully. It shows I have sockets 2 and 3 initialized but no connections.

I still program AB when the customer calls for it and, yes, Unitronics takes some getting used to if that's your background. If you're still getting hung up post your program so we can "zoom in" to the blocks.

We use Kepware as a client that reads data, from the two DA servers, and then writes this data to the DeltaV OPC server. (We also write data from DeltaV back to these servers but that seems to work fine)

This is accomplished using linked tags in the Kepware advanced tags.

Thanks for the reply.

I can confirm that our client is using Asynchronous writes.

I am dong some testing on a spare application station (live system) and have found that the writes begin to fail fairly quickly.

The Application station has a 5K Scale up and I am currently testing 800 points.

I setup a control module with 800 input parameters. 200 Floats, 200 INT, 200 UINT and 200 BOOL

When enabling the 800 writes per second, i immediately started getting a scrolling list of failed writes.

If i remove the 200 floats and 200 uints, the system recovers and i no longer have any fails.

Does the 2000 writes per second come with an asterisk and it is data type dependent.

Or maybe it is "Up to" 2000 writes per second.

I'll do some research on the client connection duration.

I am hesitant to use OPC Mirror since that is what we used several years ago and found it to be fraught with issues. Perhaps newer versions are hardened, but our original experience soured us on it.

In the communication settings for Kepware, I reduced the Max items per write from 512 to 400 and increased the write timeout from 1000ms to 2500ms.

So far I am a little over 600K writes and 0 failures with all 800 points.

An advanced plug-in extends the capabilities of the KEPServerEX connectivity platform. It provides enhanced server functionality, increasing the usefulness of data by transforming it beyond raw data in a device register.

Advanced plug-ins may be licensed individually or as part of suites and can be licensed on demand as connectivity needs evolve. Talk With an Expert Kepware Advanced Plug-Ins has the following product: Advanced TagsAdvanced Tags enables Machine to Machine (M2M) tag linking, logic, and math functions for operational communications and analysis. It can link two data tags, set a trigger based on logical states, and calculate new values from raw measures. Executing math, logic, or analysis at the connectivity platform level brings data closer to the source.

3a8082e126