GE Series 90 Driver
Not counted towards your tag license limit.
Limitations
When addressing the memory in the PLC / RTU the bit reads must be byte-aligned. For example, if address %T0014 is being read, a tag would need to be created that would start the read at the byte boundary, %T0009. Also GE addressing starts at one, not zero.
GE Series 90 drivers will commonly connect to TCP on port # 18245, although variations may be found.
GE Series 90 - Serial Error Codes
GE Series 90 - TCP Error Codes
GE Series 90 Driver properties ID tab
The ID tab of every tag includes the same common elements: Name, Area, Description, and Help ID.
Name:
Uniquely identifies each tag in the application. If the tag is a child of another, the parent names will be displayed in a separate area before the name field.
You may right-click on the tag's name to add or remove a conditional start expression.
Area
The area field is used to group similar tags together. By defining an area, you make it possible to:
- Filter for particular tag groups when searching in the tag browser
- Link dial-out alarm rosters to Alarm tags having a particular area
- Limit the number of tags loaded upon startup.
- Filter the alarm display to show only certain areas.
- Filter tag selection by area when building reports
When working with Parent-Child tag structures, the area property of all child tags will automatically match the configured area of a parent. Naturally, you can change any tag's area as required. In the case of a child tag, the field background will turn yellow to indicate that you have applied an override. (Orange in the case of user-defined types. Refer to Configuration Field Colors)
To use the area field effectively, you might consider setting the same Area for each I/O driver and its related I/O tags to group all the tags representing the equipment processes installed at each I/O device. You might also consider naming the Area property for the physical location of the tag (i.e. a station or name of a landmark near the location of the I/O device). For serial port or Roster tags, you might configure the Area property according to the purpose of each tag, such as System or Communications.
You may define as many areas as you wish and you may leave the area blank for some tags (note that for Modem tags that are to be used with the Alarm Notification System, it is actually required that the area field be left blank).
To define a new area, type the name in the field. It will immediately be added. To use an existing area, use the drop-down list feature. Re-typing an existing area name is not recommended since a typo or misspelling will result in a second area being created.
There is no tool to remove an area name from VTScada since such a tool is unnecessary. An area definition will exist as long as any tag uses it and will stop existing when no tag uses it (following the next re-start).
Description
Tag names tend to be brief. The description field provides a way to give each tag a human-friendly note describing its purpose. While not mandatory, the description is highly recommended.
Tag descriptions are displayed in the tag browser, in the list of tags to be selected for a report and also on-screen when the operator holds the pointer over the tag’s widget. For installations that use the Alarm Notification System, the description will be spoken when identifying the tag that caused the alarm.
The description field will store up to 65,500 characters, but this will exceed the practical limits of what can be displayed on-screen.
This note is relevant only to those with a multilingual user interface:
When editing any textual parameter (description, area, engineering units...) always work in the phrase editor. Any changes made directly to the textual parameter will result in a new phrase being created rather than the existing phrase being changed.
In a unilingual application this makes no difference, but in a multilingual application it is regarded as poor practice.
Help Search Key
Used only by those who have created their own CHM-format context sensitive help files to accompany their application.
Server List
Select (or create) a named server list.
GE Series 90 Driver properties Config tab
Set the communication properties of the driver with the following fields:
Communications Channel
Sets the type of communication the driver will use to communicate with the PLC and can be set to TCP/IP (SRTP) or Serial (SNP-X).
PLC SNP Address/PLC or TCP/IP Address
If TCP/IP communications are being used, this will be the IP address of the PLC. If Serial communications are being used this will be the station SNP-X ID.
Timeout Limit
The maximum time to wait (in seconds) for a response from the remote device before retrying or generating an error.
Port
Select the external serial port for use with the SNP-X protocol. Note that the Port may need to be a Serial Port tag if the PLC does not support "Break-Free Operation". In it's original format, SNP-X protocol relies on the use of serial break commands that cannot be handled by TCP/IP or UDP/IP port connections to Ethernet to serial devices. Some of these devices may support the serial break function, but only if used with their supplied serial port redirector drivers and configured as a serial port in VTScada. Check the device hardware / software specifications to confirm if the break function is supported.
If the PLC supports "Break-Free Operation" and it is enabled, then a TCP/IP Port tag or UDP/IP Port may be used when communicating to the PLC using an Ethernet to serial converter.
A port tag does not need to be defined when using the STRP protocol as the driver uses an internal TCP/IP port
TCP/IP Port #
The TCP port number used by the internal TCP/IP port for the SRTP protocol.
TCP/IP Connect Time Limit
The time limit for a successful TCP/IP connection before an error is generated.
Retries
The number of times to retry a message before declaring an error.
Use only if the driver is connected to a device that uses a serial port or a UDP/IP port that is configured to be polled. When connected directly to a device using TCP/IP, this value should normally be set to 0 since TCP/IP is a guaranteed message delivery protocol.
For unreliable communications, such as radio, set to 3 or 4.
Hold
Select this to have I/O tags attached to the driver hold their last value in the event of a communication failure. If not selected, tags will have their value set to invalid on a communication failure.
Store Last Output Values
When selected, the driver will maintain a record of the last value written to each output address. This may be useful in at least two situations:
- For hardware that does not maintain its state during a power loss and must be restored to that state when re-started.
- When failed hardware is replaced by a new device and you would like to start that device with the values last written to the old one.
If the last output values are stored, they may be re-written by either of two methods:
- Automatically, when communication is restored to the device.
- Manually by way of a button press. See, Rewrite Outputs Widget for details.
Changing this value from selected to deselected will cause all stored values to be erased immediately.
Enable Auto Rewrite
If selected, the Store Last Output Values option will also be activated. This option causes the driver to rewrite the last value written to each output, in the event that communications are lost and then restored.
Use this option only if you are certain that you want the last values to be rewritten automatically after an interruption in driver communications.
GE Series 90 Driver properties Virtual PLC tab
The Virtual PLC tab is for setting up the driver to act like a "virtual" PLC. Specify how many memory addresses of each type to allocate to this virtual PLC.
Virtual PLC "R" Words
The number of type "R" words to allocate for the virtual PLC.
Virtual PLC "AI" Words
The number of type "AI" words to allocate for the virtual PLC.
Virtual PLC "AQ" Words
The number of type "AQ" words to allocate for the virtual PLC.
Virtual PLC "I" Bits
The number of type "I" bits to allocate for the virtual PLC.
Virtual PLC "M" Bits
The number of type "M" bits to allocate for the virtual PLC.
Virtual PLC "T" Bits
The number of type "T" bits to allocate for the virtual PLC.
Virtual PLC "Q" Bits
The number of type "Q" bits to allocate for the virtual PLC.
GE Series 90 Driver Tag Widgets
The following widgets are available to display information about your Enron Modbus driver tags:
