Your ClearSCADA system can connect to, and interact with, a wide variety of outstations, PLCs, controllers and similar devices. These devices contain 'live' data that is reported to, or retrieved by ClearSCADA and stored in corresponding items in the database. Similarly, ClearSCADA can send controls to the device.
You are now going to configure ClearSCADA to communicate with a hardware device—a SCADAPack Modbus controller that has:
- Its serial port set to Modbus address 1
- TelePACE firmware loaded
- Been connected to a plant simulation equipment
- A standard Register Assignment
- Been connected to a COM port on your PC.
While we recommend that you use a SCADAPack Modbus controller (available from your ClearSCADA agent), you can complete this section without any hardware. However, if you don’t have a SCADAPack Modbus controller, you won’t have live I/O to work with, so to achieve different values and states, you will need to perform Hand Controls on your points.
NOTE: You need to have the Advanced Modbus driver installed on your system (see Installing ClearCADA).
As you set up your first 'live' configuration, you will learn how to:
- Log On to ViewX
- Create a 'Serial Comms' Group and a 'Site' Group
- Create an Advanced Modbus Direct Channel
- Configure an Advanced Modbus Direct Outstation Set
- Configure a SCADAPack Modbus Direct Outstation
- Configure Two SCADAPack Modbus Analog Input Points
- Configure Two SCADAPack Modbus Digital Input Points
- Configure Two SCADAPack Modbus Digital Output Points
- Configure a Mimic to contain Dynamic Data for the Points
- Display a Historic Trend for the 'AI 1' Analog Input Point
- Add an Alarms List to the Mimic
- Filter the Alarms List
- Create a Trend Database Item
- Add the 'AI 1' Point’s Historic Values to a Trend
- Edit the X-Axis
- Add the 'DI 1' Point’s Historic Values to a Trend
- Copy the Trend Data to Microsoft Excel.
At the end of this section, you can see how much you have learned by accepting our challenge to Test Your Knowledge on 'Live' Configuration.