Syntax for OPC tag in FTView SE

radfahrer

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Can anyone help me with the syntax for referring to a tag on an OPC server which is configured in the root of an FTView application?

I'm trying to get familiar with setting up an OPC server on a test system before installing it on the live system.

My setup is as follows:
FTView SE Distributed Application v10
OPC server is the Matrikon Simulation server - example item name on that server is Random.Int4

In FactoryTalk Directory, I right click on my application root, selected the Add Server - OPC DA Server option. Named it GTK_OPC_TEST and selected the server which the Matrikon OPC server is installed on (GTK-LD-SRV in this case) as the "Computer that will run the server" and was able to browse the server ProgID's and selected the Simulation server.

With that config in place, if I view the server status in FTAdmin Console it shows as "Active"

Now I created a test display and tried using {/GTK_OPC_TEST::Random.Int4} as an address for a numeric display object, but no luck. I've tried a bunch of different combos like /GTK_OP_TEST[]::Random.Int4, etc. and no luck.

The Matrikon server does not show an Access Path when I browse the tags using Matrikon's browse tool. I tried browsing in FTView, but the server doesn't show up, I saw a thread post indicating if you had the server installed on the FT Directory node then browsing might work, but we don't want to do that on our system.

I'm hoping I'm just missing a \ or : or something like that here. I'm actually trying to get these into HMI tags, but I couldn't find a way to view the value of an HMI tag from the HMI tag editor, so figured would test the addressing syntax on a display first where it is quick to test, then create the HMI tags later.

Any tips appreciated,

-Greg
 
The format is actually {SERVERCOMPUTERNAME:APPLICATION:[TOPIC]TAGNAME}
You see a lot of people using {::[PLC]Tagname} but if you already defined the RSViewME PLC name then you really don't need the ::


Mine usually just have {[PLCname]Tagname}


But for you if your using a remote tag server then it would be {Servername:ApplicationName:[Topic]Tagname}
 
Last edited:
JaxGTO,

Does that syntax work for a 3rd party OPC server or is that for Rockwell PLC's via RSLinx Enterprise only?

I'm trying to use a 3rd party OPC server (the Matrikon simulation server) which doesn't have anything analogous to the Topic name, and doesn't have an Application name either. I've seen mention of using the Access path in the brackets, but this OPC server doesn't seem to have anything in the Access path either.
 
I have an application using 3rd party OPC server.
The server name is not in the tags.
My setup is like this:
ApplicationName::UDT.paramater.

Use the built in OPC client to browse for tags, get an idea what the syntax looks like.
 
Ken,

By Application name I'm assuming that's the FTView SE application name is that correct? Question I have then is if you have more than one OPC server in your application, with that syntax, how does it know which server to get the tag from?

I tried using the RSI OPC Test client, and that gives me the same results as Matrikon Explorer, it connects fine, reads the tags fine, but only displays the tag as Random.Int4, doesn't give me any indication of what the FTView syntax should be.

At this point I'm going to try the KepServerEX Simulation server in demo mode to see if that works better than the Matrikon simulation server in this case.
 
So did some more testing and was able to get it to work...figured I'd post my results in case anyone else runs into this issue.

I got it to work first with OPC server on same node as HMI server/FT Directory. Then after playing with DCOM settings, got it to work with the server on a different node from the HMI Server/FT Directory. Tag syntax is the same in both cases.

Here's what I found.

If the OPC server is in the root of your application then the syntax is just {OPCTagName} so {Random.Int4} in my case. This result surprised me, since there is no reference to the name given to the OPC server in FTView. Not sure what happens if you create links to two different servers in the root that have the same OPCnamespace.

If you put the server into an Area, then the syntax is {/Area::OPCTagName}...so that would be a solution for two servers with same namespace.
 
JaxGTO,

Does that syntax work for a 3rd party OPC server or is that for Rockwell PLC's via RSLinx Enterprise only?

I'm trying to use a 3rd party OPC server (the Matrikon simulation server) which doesn't have anything analogous to the Topic name, and doesn't have an Application name either. I've seen mention of using the Access path in the brackets, but this OPC server doesn't seem to have anything in the Access path either.


I have actually only tried it with Kepware. But if it supports standard OPC then I would think any would work. Good Luck..
 

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