If the Xplorer interface is selected in the tree, you can see an overview of diagnostics information on the configured connections between ibaPDA and the controllers.

The interface has the following features and configuration options.

Set all values to zero when the connection to a PLC is lost

If this option is enabled, all measured values of the PLC are set to zero as soon as the connection is lost. If this option is disabled, ibaPDA keeps the last valid measured value in memory when the connection is lost.

Start acquisition even if a PLC is not accessible

If this option is enabled, the acquisition starts even if the controller is not accessible. A warning is prompted in the validation dialog, not an error. If the system was started without a connection to the controller, ibaPDA periodically tries to connect to the PLC.

Allow inaccessible operands

Enable this option if you wish to start acquisition even if an operand is not accessible during the validation of the I/O configuration. If you do not enable this option, measurement does not start when inaccessible operands are present.

<Open log file>

If connections to controllers have been established, all connection specific actions are recorded in a text file. Using this button, you can open and check this file. In the file system on the hard disk, you find the log files of this interface in the path …\ProgramData\iba\ibaPDA\Log. The file name of the current log file is InterfaceLog.txt; the name of the archived log files is InterfaceLog_yyyy_mm_dd_hh_mm_ss.txt.

<Reset statistics>

Click this button to reset the calculated times and error counters in the table to 0.

Connection table

For each connection, the table shows the connection status, the current values for the update time (actual value, average, min. and max.) as well as the data size. In addition, there is an error counter for the individual connections during the acquisition.

See Connection table.

  • Data size: The data size shows how much data is read per read operation; in between brackets, the number of commands used to request the data is displayed.

  • Response time: The time it takes to read the data for a connection. The table shows the actual, average, minimum and maximum values of the response time.

  • Update time: The update time indicates the time between 2 read operations.