Basic settings

For a description of the basic settings see Common and general module settings.

OPC

Computer name

This is the name of the computer running the OPC server. Enter the computer name here, either by browsing the network ( ) or entering the name or IP address manually.

OPC server

In this field, select the OPC server which should be used as the data source. The system automatically detects all available OPC server processes running on the above-selected computer. You can select the OPC server process from the selection list in this field.

Just click into the input field and open the selection list.

User account

Enter here your logon data for accessing the OPC server computer. To help you, you can open an input dialog with the button.

If you leave this field empty, the system automatically uses the user account currently running ibaPDA. You may also enter a different user account (user name and password) with appropriate access rights on the OPC server computer.

Well-configured security settings on both computers are very important in order to guarantee a proper communication between OPC server and ibaPDA. The user account is also used to generate the list of the available OPC servers.

Group name

This is the name of the OPC group which ibaPDA uses when connecting to the OPC server. If this field is left empty, ibaPDA uses a unique automatically generated group name.

Update time

The update time determines how fast data is requested from the OPC server. The update time can be specified independently of the module time base.

Fastest update time

This value is transmitted from the connected OPC server to ibaPDA. It shows the rate at which OPC variables are updated. If the time base of ibaPDA is less than the refresh rate of the OPC server, multiple measuring points with the same value will be recorded per update cycle of the OPC server. In this case, a warning message appears when starting the measurement or exiting the I/O Manager.

Force data type

If an OPC server supports a dynamic change of data types (e.g., ibaLogic-V4), this option should be set to TRUE in order to avoid conflicts with file types. If this option is enabled (TRUE), ibaPDA forces the OPC server to return to the data type specified in the ibaPDA configuration. If this option is disabled (FALSE), ibaPDA requests the native data type from the OPC server.

Do initial read

If you set this option to TRUE, then ibaPDA performs a complete reading process of the OPC items after starting the measurement for this OPC client.

Add item attempts

By setting this value, you can specify the number of attempts that ibaPDA makes to add the requested OPC items to a group. The default setting is 1.

For some OPC servers, one attempt may not be enough because they do not accept items until they have completely finished loading their configuration. There is a one-second pause between two attempts.

"Connect/disconnect", "Add signals" and "Clear" hyperlinks

Click on the Connect hyperlink in order to establish a connection to the OPC server. Click on the Add signals hyperlink in order to add signals to your OPC module. An OPC browser assists you when searching for OPC tags. In order to delete signals from the signal table, select the corresponding signals and click the Delete hyperlink.
Further information about OPC connections

Both computers, the one running the ibaPDA server, and the one running the OPC server, should be logged on to the same domain or work group.

On both computers, the same user account with the same user name and password should be configured. Administrator rights are required for both machines.

There are sometimes significant differences in the settings between different Windows versions. You can find more information about this in a separate document.