New to Wonderware, need some help.

Hello All - I haven't used wonderware since the ver 6's, and I'm now charged with adding a few screens and around 30 data points to an existing 10.1 published app. It looks as though I'm going to be developing a lot of these apps in the months to come, so I'm trying to gain long term proficiency here, not just something to fix my current problem

I am trudging my way through it, but where I'm stuck is the IO addressing, and tagname relationship to the IO server. Is there a protocol that I should follow with regards to the tagnames, other than what is part of the project already, and how do I reference the IO server so that my new data points can be harvested from the PLC?

I'm pretty much up to speed on window construction ( I think )but this is the portion I am not sure of.

The process already is using a Control Logix PLC, and 2 other racks of IO, with fiber connections. I'm adding one Micrologix PLC, also fiber pipe but am integrating it into the existing HMI.

I have a controlllogix talking to wonderare v10.1.
The only gotcha is either periods "." or underscores "_" - I forget which one.

We have a lot of WW tags that are named the exact same as the Controllogix tag except the ww has _ where the cllgx has .

I'm sure the ww documentation gives you a list of forbidden charachters. And we are using a lot of UDT's in the cllgx, so there are a lot of dots in there.

Other than that, the tag naming is prety straightforward. I have never programmed ww from the ground up, but I've done a fair amount of modification to our existing screens and its not that tough (once you learn ww's conventions...)

-John

I would ask if this is standalone InTouch but it sounds like you are using the Development Platform (as it's a published app). Are all the tags local to the Wonderware Application of are you using objects in the IDE deployed to a platform? If you are using objects how is each field in the object referenced to the PLC? Is it direct addressing or are you using an auto config script in the object?

I'm not sure if these questions will help figure out what your problem is or is a symptom of what is mentioned above, syntax errors.

Mad, its a published app. To my knowledge, these are local only tags and aren't used anywhere else in the plant, if that is what you mean. What I'm having trouble wrapping my head around is the DASABCIP configuration, not that I've got that far yet. I'm still developing the screens for the added equipment and vacuum vessel.

I think I can create tag's based on the module addresses, and that the OPC can handle that instead of an elaborate tag name? I've got the PLC logic taken care of, and the windows appearance taken care of. Should my tag names in WW match anything in the DA server? I am at my office, and don't have the OPC server running anywhere I can rip in to it and mess with it online, but am sure if I did I'd be able to figure this out. I've exported the DB from Archestra, but the tag names with some of the discretes look to be a combination of the address/modules and a local process tag.

Hope this helps, and I hope I'm asking the right questions.

In your DASABCIP you will need to define your communications path to the PLC. You would do this from the DAServer Manger in the SMC.

If you are using System Platform, you would define your Topic in the Suitelink object (which is derived from ArchestrA.DDESuiteLinkClient).

If you are not using System Platform, then you would need to define the Topic (Access Name) in InTouch.

After those are defined, you should be able to define tags using the normal conventions for your type of PLC.

Guys, thanks. So far, so good. I've now installed the 4.1 DAS ABCIP driver in to the SMC, and have added the New_Port_Cip_000 and New_ML_EN_000. In the New ML window, how do I go about assigned PLC data points to tag names ?

Thanks -