Example for the Applicom driver

This chapter describes, step-by-step, how to establish a connection with the Applicom driver. A Siemens Simatic S7-300 was used as a peripheral device in this example. The used Applicom card is PCI2000ETH equipped with 2 channels (Ethernet and serial).

Requirements

Before you work through this example perform the following steps:

• Install and configure the Applicom card with the aid of the Applicom console. The board number in this example is 1. The channel 0 is used to communicate with the S7-300. The S7-300 equipment number is 1. For more information on the configuration of the Applicom card see the Applicom Online Help.

• Create a data point type with a data point (data type bool) in your project. Derive 10 data points from this data point type. The data point type Applicom_S7 and the data points from DP_01 to DP_10 were created for this example. You can of course use another name if you want to.

Communication establishment

1. Define the entries for the Applicom driver in the config file of the project (see Possible config entries of the Applicom driver). In this example no entries are defined, i.e. the default values are used.
    

2. Define the S7-PLC as Applicom device (S7-300) in the configuration panel (see the Configuration panel of the Applicom driver). The board number, channel number and the equipment number are dependent on the configuration of the Applicom card with the periphery. In this example you have to define the numbers like shown in the figure below. Choose the protocol for the S7-300 from the Protocol combo box. Activate the Active check box in order to use the data point for the device. The internal Applicom list is used for polling. Activate also the general query check box. The query is executed at the driver start.

Figure: Configuration panel for the Applicom driver

3. Apply the settings made in the panel.
    

4. Start the Applicom driver (WCCOAapc) and assign an Applicom peripheral address to the data point elements of the data points DP_01 to DP_10 in the PARA module. Choose the created device names from the Equipment name combo box and assign the right address which is used to communicate with the bits on the PLC (e.g. E4.0 to E4.7 for DP_01 to DP_08 and the addresses E5.0 to E5.1 for DP_09 to DP_10). Configure all addresses as input and polling with a poll time of 1000 msec.

Figure: Applicom peripheral address for a data point element

5. Restart the Applicom driver so that the configured peripheral addresses are applied by the driver and the Applicom list can be built. A general query is performed and the current values are shown in the PARA panel. In the configuration panel of the Applicom driver you can see the status "Connected".
    

6. Change the value of a bit on the PLC.

Result

The value is updated after maximum one second (set poll time) at the respective data point element in WinCC OA. By using the Applicom polling function the value in WinCC OA is updated only when it changes. This is because the card passes only data that has changed.