Hi all,

I am involved in a project where the contractor is trying to interface iFIX to a LONWorks based building control system using Echelon's LNS and Innovex LON/OPC server. They are finding problems in getting the OPC point browser to work when inserting OPC points into iFIX and in controlling points from iFIX.

Does anyone have experience with this combination or has anyone successfully interfaced LONWorks/LNS to iFIX using another approach. Any
suggestions would be appreciated.

Regards

Peter Whalley

Managing Director
Magenta Communications Pty Ltd
121 King Street,
Melbourne, VIC 3000
Australia.

e-mail: [email protected]

 

We have implemented this type of system in quite a number of installations. The Innovex server is probably a OPC SPec V2.0+. We have it working w/ Genesis32 from Iconics and it works great,
We also have iWare from BCS , and WW talking to it.
iFix should not be a problem , provided you have the correct version that supports OPC servers w/ versions greater than 1.0
What type of Control system ae they installing??
I assume they are using LonMaker. Test it w/ a standard OPC test client.
Download from OPC foundation website.
PC Soft, Iconics,KEPWare, etc. if it works w/ these test clients, It may be an iFix problem.

Mark Massa

 

Hi Mark,

We have also been using the OPC server with TrendworX and AlarmWorX from Iconics and it generally worked OK except for DrWatson errors coming up every few days which state they are related to the LNS software. These go away if we only run TrendWorx and not AlarmWorX.

I would certainly expect Iconics and Innovex products to work together, the 2 companies seem to be fairly closely related.

I will suggest the contractor tries a test client and test server to see if either iFIX or Innovex has a problem (possibly instalation related).

Does anyone have any other suggestions on how to debug OPC interfaces. Is there a protocol analyser type tool available or do any of the test clients or servers generate debug logs or similar. What's the general approach when an OPC interface doesn't work properly.

Yes they are using LonMaker for Windows to bind up the network. Controllers are CSI NetPoint with Sontay schedulers and Coactive LL and LE routers.

Thanks

Peter Whalley

 

Mark,
The OPC committee has just released a compliance test for servers. We have just released our OPC server for Wonderware's InControl product in which we went to some effort to be sure that it was fully compliant. I
suggest as a starting point that you download the compliance test and run these servers against it. I think all OPC servers should be tested before using in any serious application and the OPC committee makes this easy with their new compliance test. I hope this helps.

Mark Ramey