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Industrial Automation Knowledge Base

How to Enable Native Citect Scada OPC DA Server on EcoStruxure Process Expert? In EcoStruxure Process Expert 2019 (former HDCS) and previous versions the communication between the supervision participant Citect Scada and Modicon PAC controllers are handle by OFS – OPC Factory Server. The OFS is an OPC DA Server which is installed in the same server as the EPE operation server(s). Whenever a third-party software needs to collect data from EPE it can be done by connecting to OFS Server in either primary or standby operation server. This solution using OFS Server as an unique OPC DA Server to interface with other system works fine but some customers standard or customers best practice doesn’t allow other systems to collect data direct from the controllers. These customers prefer third-party software collecting data from the supervision servers. Another motivating force to have an OPC DA server enabled on supervision participant is that some projects could have calculate variables on supervision which does not exist on control project...

Issue The aim of this article is to provide a step-by-step guide to configure EcoStruxure Data Expert – Performance in order to establish MQTT communication with Node-RED. Resolution Please see the attachment for further information. Disclaimer The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Schneider Electric.

All control projects require some level of time synchronization. The time synchronization serves a fundamental role in any network, but it's too often added as an afterthought. However, it can mean the difference between correctly troubleshooting in minutes and returning the production to the desired level or having no idea about what caused production lost. The Network Time Protocol is a client-server protocol and has been widely adopted in all kind of Industries since 1985. It is a low-cost solution that can be easily applied for all EcoStruxure Process Expert architectures.

Issue If you ever tried to link EcoStruxure Plant Data Expert: Essential Nodes directly to EcoStruxure Augmented Operator Advisor Nodes, you will find that EcoStruxure Augmented Operator Advisor Nodes do not accept the CMS payload which EcoStruxure Plant Data Expert: Essential Nodes produce. Resolution This is an article to teach us how we can use EcoStruxure Plant Data Expert: Essential Nodes with EcoStruxure Augmented Operator Advisor Nodes with the introduction of Change Node within our Flow. Disclaimer The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Schneider Electric.

Issue Schneider Electric provides M580 ePAC and Ethernet modules. Several architectures are already documented. However, the need of customer sometimes is different and requires a specific architecture. In this case, we will have a look on remarks and questions regarding topology and modules characteristics with a special focus to avoid broadcast storms. Resolution From extraction of the EcoStruxure Control Expert Help and “M580 Ethernet Remote IO / Distributed IO Principles and Technologies” document, this article reminds the basic rules of the Ethernet ports of modules and Ethernet cables to connect or not, to avoid broadcast storm. Disclaimer The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Schneider Electric.

Background Growing in popularity now is the trend to propagate data into the Cloud. AVEVA Insight Online is one of the featured Applications which we can easily propagate data to and have them displayed as smart data to be viewed anywhere. When using AVEVA Insight Online as it is, without any added configurations, we usually have our contents displayed in its simplest form as below. Objective When this knowledge is applied, not only are we able to get the Units of Measurements to show (on the Analog Tags), but we are able to also get Digital Tags to show a descriptive state instead of just ON and OFF. Disclaimer The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Schneider Electric.

Background With the advent of IIoT integration into many industry solutions, one of the most common requests nowadays is with regards to the messaging. Objective In this knowledge base article, we will show how Citect can be made to send a message to Microsoft Teams. This is useful in situations where Citect needs to urgently alert a recipient on some critical matters occurring in the plant. Although this knowledge base is made around Microsoft Teams, the concept can be similarly applied to other messaging platforms such as WhatsApp, Line and even Facebook Messenger. Disclaimer The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Schneider Electric.

Issue EcoStruxure Automation Expert V21.1 introduces the possibility of using adapters in the basic Function Blocks. Resolution The purpose of this document is to describe, using a simple example, how to use these as adapters. Disclaimer The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Schneider Electric.

Issue How do I utilise the new WWW Library released with EcoStruxure Automation Expert? Objective There is a new WWW Library released with the standard EAE installer. This library is rather user-friendly and allows us to engineer some specific processes in the water industry. The objective of this article is to, in the shortest time possible, teach you how to engineer an Aeration Process using objects from the Library. You will then run the Solution to see how it works. Disclaimer The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Schneider Electric.

Issue Need to create an easy integration of Modbus devices in EcoStruxure Automation Expert Resolution The Hardware CAT allows to integrate a fieldbus device, managing the communication parameters, the hardware abstraction layer, and the animated graphic symbol. The document describes how to create an Hardware CAT based on the creation of an STB island managed by an STBNIP2311. The example project archive is available in the download area. Disclaimer The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Schneider Electric.

Objective This article describes how to unpack a 16-Bit Analog value acquired via MODBUS communication, into its individual bit components that can then be used as an Array of 16 Digital states. This is a common practice in many industry automation implementations to optimize the traffic between devices and as a strategy to reduce the number of variables read in from a device. Disclaimer The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Schneider Electric.

Issue Explicit messaging can be used more effectively instead of implicit messaging in a few use cases. E.g. polling multiple services devices connected through a Modbus TCP to serial gateway; or configuring event-based read/write communication instead of cyclic ones. EcoStruxure Control Expert provides many function blocks for explicit messaging. The Data_Exch block stands out as it allows to program any Modbus or Ethernet/IP query required by the users. However, from its user manual, it's not so clear on how to go about it. Resolution This article can be read as additional guidance to users apart from the block's user manual. Focus is on using this block for any Modbus query, and as an example, Function codes 22 and 23 are implemented. Usage of Data_Exch over Ethernet/IP is not included as it has been well described in an existing document. Download link for the sample section: https://schneider-electric.box.com/s/e0er959u70biofuwpjtmoqxh44zdzngs Disclaimer The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Schneider Electric.

Issue Using Modbus serial communication with third-party equipment requires complex logic to manage priorities and diagnostics. Resolution The General Purpose library (GPL) has powerful functions and only needs a simple configuration for the implementation of this communication. This document shows the implementation of a serial Modbus client and scanner communication, in EcoStruxure Process Expert. The GPL library is also available for EcoStruxure Control expert as a standalone library and the two examples described can be easily reused on this software platform. Library link: https://shop.exchange.se.com/en-US/apps/66288/general-purpose-library-v2-for-ecostruxure-control-exp... Disclaimer The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Schneider Electric.

Issue The configuration of an MMM system with routes, starting and stopping assets in sequence, taking into account security and associated supervision, is not easy to achieve. Resolution EcoStruxure Process Expert and the MMM library allow to realize these functions and the associated supervision by simple parameterization. The document presents the functional description of an MMM process managing conveyor belts, valves and tanks and how to develop the system with a group control function used to start and stop the assets in sequence. Disclaimer The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Schneider Electric.

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