Allen-Bradley Driver Tags

The Allen-Bradley driver provides an interface to an Allen-Bradley PLC, allowing communication via:

•    Serial port

•    KT/SD I/O board

•    TCP/IP

Allen Bradley devices have the ability to collect a data between polls.  To access this data with either a VTS Analog Status or Digital Status tag, configure the "History Address" edit field with the location in the PLC of the logged data value using the format:

  DLx:y

where "x" is the queue number (between 0 and 255) and "y" is the field in the queue where the data value is being logged (between 3 and 11 because 1 is reserved for the date and 2 for the time).

Example:

The PLC is configured to log values of addresses T4:5.ACC and T4:6.ACC into fields 3 and 4 of queue 0 once every minute.

To configure an analog Status tag to read the current value of address T4:6.ACC from the PLC every 10 minutes and to read its logged values every hour, the following needs to be set in the "I/O" tab of the Analog Status tag's configuration:

Address = T4:6.ACC, 

Scan Interval = 600, 

History Address = DL0:4, 

History Scan Interval = 3600

 

The characteristics of the Allen-Bradley driver are described in the table below.

Allen-Bradley Driver Characteristics

Tag Browser Name: Allen Bradley Driver

Database Table Name: ABDriver

Type: Driver

Tag Group Memberships: Drivers, Numeric

Log Enabled Variables: see Communication Driver Log-Enabled Variables 

Native Drawing Methods: see Allen-Bradley Driver Tag Drawing Methods