Foxboro <-> FTView SE via AIM*OPC

[ptheabstract]

Hey!

I'm in the process of combining two control systems with separate front ends (Foxboro/Foxview and PLC5-ControlLogix/RSView32) into a single, high performance operator interface on FTView SE using PlantPAx.

I've been running into a little bit of trouble getting the remote AIM*OPC server (for OPC access to the Foxboro tags) to work properly with FTView. I believe I have the DCOM settings correct -- I am able to view/browse the OPC server using the Matrikon explorer from the FTView HMI server, but I am unable to view/browse tags from within FTView Studio or the FT Live Data Test Client.

I sort of have the feeling that FT is attempting to poll the OPC server over TCP/IP (OPC UA) rather than DCOM (OPC DA)... There is a "Live Data Policy" setting in the FT Admin console that can be switched from default TCP/IP to DCOM -- but every station on the network needs to be rebooted in order for the change to take effect....

Has anyone had experience with this? Just thought I would ask around...before I start rebooting every station in the plant

Thanks in advance!

 

[ptheabstract]

Problem solved! No need to change the default Live Data Policy... The data server folder structure did not get created on the FTD somehow... Just needed to delete and re-create the OPC server from the FTAdmin console...

Several hours of my life troubleshooting that I will not get back....

 

[ptheabstract]

Ok -- so now onto a new (but related) issue... The AIM*OPC server does not seem to publish meaningful Tag Value min/max (OPC Tag Property 102/103). FTView will not write tag values outside of the detected min/max.
For example, I have a discrete tag that I would like to toggle from 0->1 in FTView... but for some reason, the OPC tag property has min/max range of 0 to 6.275800E-300. So toggling from 1 to 0 is not an issue, but I cannot go from 0 to 1.

Does anyone have ideas for how I can work around this? Rockwell Tech support said there is no way to "bypass" the tag high/low limit checking for writing values to tags. I was thinking of adding a third party activex control to the gfx to do the tag writes... but perhaps there is something simpler... Does anyone have experience troubleshooting OPC tag ranges/configuring on server? AIM*OPC is pretty old...I've been looking into how the OPC tag min/max values are populated -- haven't had much luck yet though.

Thanks in advance for any help!