HSMS interface

[Manglemender]

Hello all,

Does anyone have any experience of providing an HSMS compliant interface from a Rockwell SCADA?

HSMS seems to be part of a SEMI standard and used in the semiconductor industry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Speed_SECS_Message_Services


Nick

 

[Chris Taylor]

Nick


Inductive Automation have an OPC UA driver, you could install that to connect to your machine and then connect by making a OPC topic in RSLinx.


I've not tried it but you can test it for free.


https://docs.inductiveautomation.com/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=19957126

 

[Manglemender]

Thanks for the pointer. I'll take a look at that.

Nick

 

[JesperMP]

That wikipedia page is basically empty. There is a link on the wikipedia page, but it is broken.
This is the best I could find: https://www.cimetrix.com/hsms
Doesnt say much, apart from that you must contact Cimetrix to get more information.
It is from 2009, that means 10 years ago !
All in all, I would be worried. I would ask the persons who requested this to provide you with the necessary information.

Chris Taylor mentioned OPC UA. I too would think that the task that HSMS does would be a candidate for OPC UA since it is the way things are going when it comes to communicating between machines. But it does not seem that HSMS has anything to do with OPC UA.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Jesper


The IA OPC module is a Protocol converter for HSMS, the TCP driver makes the HSMS data available via OPC UA for clients.

 

[JesperMP]

Aha, I tried to google OPC UA to HSMS, no hits.

It seems that one gets better hits when searching for SECS/GEM instead of HSMS.

 

[Manglemender]

I looked at the IA stuff and it seems to be more about getting information from machines that have an HSMS interface rather than providing an HSMS interface for a machine.

Normally we would use something like OPC to provide an interface and have also published data to MQTT but this request has come from a customer and it seems non-trivial to implement.

Nick

 

[Manglemender]

It seems that Rockwell produced an add on for RSView32 called GEMTool but I don't see it any more.

 

[JesperMP]

You mean that you have a machine that connects to a Rockwell Scada, and to get the machine to exchange data with HSMS, you intend to use the Rockwell Scada PC for this purpose ?
If that is correctly understood, then how about using a gateway between OPC UA or OPC DA to SECS/GEM ?
You get a couple of successful hits if you search for OPC to SECS/GEM.
Here are a couple:
https://secsandgem.com/node/102 edit: nope that one also is an interface from SECS/GEM to OPC, not the other way around.
https://www.cimetrix.com/kepserverex edit: this sounds more promising. "Kepware's KEPServerEX combined with the Cimetrix CIMConnect software allows OEMs to connect their PLC-controlled equipment to SECS/GEM and GEM 300 interfaces via an OPC-compliant interface."

 

[Manglemender]

Thanks Jesper,

We are, potentially, building a machine for a customer that wants the machine to have an HSMS compliant interface. Right now I just needed to know that there was a solution out there. I'm familliar with KepserverEX so that may be the best way to go.

Nick

 

[Manglemender]

The ErgoTech site says you can create both Host and machine interfaces: "TransSECS software is the fastest way to create both equipment and host SECS/GEM interfaces."

May need to dig a little deeper.

Nick

 

[Chris Taylor]

Manglemender


Ah, I misunderstood, I thought you were trying to connect to a machine, but you’re looking to build the actual interface. That’s outside my experience I’m afraid.