Details on the Applicom driver

This chapter is intended for advanced WinCC OA users. It describes in detail the debug possibilities, transformations and provides detailed information on the Applicom driver.

Debug levels

In order to detect possible sources of error during the driver actions the command line options can be used for debugging. Use -helpdbg to view more information on all other options (see also Manager options).

Debug level	Description
-dbg cyclic	Creating, changing and deleting cyclic functions
-dbg mem	Card memory management
-dbg fifo	Event processing, Card polling
-dbg poll	Driver polling
-dbg gq	General query
-dbg defer	Asynchronous write and read requests
-dbg alive	Alive sign monitoring (This debug level does not function under Linux)
-dbg redusps	Information to redundant PLCs
-dbg 2	Describes in detail what the driver does at the moment. It is recommended to set this option only when the driver load is low in order to not to influence the time behavior of the driver.
-report all	This debug output lists in log viewer the elements that are polled with the Applicom card or with the driver. (display: shows whether the Applicom card polling ("use Applicom card polling" or driver polling ("use driver polling) is used). Additionally the first address of the cyclic function is displayed.

Transformations

A transformation converts hardware data into a WinCC OA format. The transformation type of a data point element can be queried or set with the aid of the integer constants below. If you use dpGet() or dpSet() you have to use the attribute _address.._datatype.

Transformation type	Integer	Trans. type in the apc_config	Description
UNDEFINED	640		undefined
BOOLEAN	641	BIT	Bool
BYTE	642	BYTE	Byte
INT16	643	WORD	16-Bit Integer signed
INT32	644	DWORD	32-Bit Integer signed
FLOAT	645	FWORD	floating-point number
UINT16	646	WORD	16-Bit Integer unsigned
UINT32	647	DWORD	32-Bit Integer unsigned

Alive mechanism

The driver tries to query the first address that is defined as input polling at specific intervals. The address is queried as an alive message.

The interval can be set via the TimeOut config entry (see also Possible config entries of the Applicom driver). The alive message is not used if only spontaneous data is expected and only one client configuration is configured in the Applicom console.

Initialization of the Applicom card

The Applicom card has to be reinitialized after each change of the configuration. There is an own file (Executable) for the initialization in the Applicom program directory (C:/Program files/applicom/applicom 3.7/Pcinit.exe). Execute this file to initialize the card.

The Applicom driver in WinCC OA provides another possibility to initialize the card. The path to the executable file can be specified via the config entry InitFile and the Applicom card is initialized automatically after a restart of the driver (the path of the executable is read from the registry by default and is initialized with it at each driver start).

The initialization of the Applicom card under Linux cannot be done in this easy way. An instruction for initializing the card under Linux can be found in the chapter Requirements and installation.

Caution

Close all applications that use Applicom-specific libraries (DLLs) before the initialization process (Applicom driver and Applicom tools)!

Error messages

If a cyclic function cannot be created the driver displays an error message in the log viewer (e.g. ApcPrLayer Cyclic function error 0:21 35). The message displays the following information:

0 ... Displays the channel number used by the cyclic function
21 ... The number of the cyclic function
35 ... Function status as shown in the VisuCycTool (a specific tool that is installed with the Applicom hardware solution)

Such error messages can occur when e.g. the value for the maximum number of elements for a data type that can be read in a request or in a cyclic function from the periphery is defined too high in the apc_config file (see also Rules of the address transformation).

The meaning of the Applicom-specific function states, which are shown in the log viewer, (e.g. 35) can be found in the Applicom Help. The messages are described in the Online Help of the respective protocol in chapter Appendices > Return status of applicom functions > applicom general status or Appendices > Return status of applicom functions > status according to the protocol

Further specific error messages when using Applicom driver:

"Event Fifo full, restarting Board 1": This means an overflow of the event queue on the Applicom card. The events in the queue are cleared and a general query is executed (the state of the connection in the configuration panel is shown as follows: Fifo full --> General Query --> Connected).
"ApcPrLayer::_workProcReadWrite return unknown state 33 device maybe not ok for read/write": This error message points to a bus error (network cable was unplugged, the power supply of the device is interrupted).
"ApcPrLayer::_initApplicom Unknown Error Status = 46": This error message will be returned, if the Applicom.dll version from the Applicom installation does not equal with the version from the WinCC OA bin-directory. Under Windows the Applicom.dll library can be replaced by a higher version. Under Linux the giver Applicom version must be used, because the library is linked statistical there.

V 3.11 SP1