One of our Opto Partners has written a LabView driver for our Ethernet devices.
It uses MemMap calls from within their software.
From the feed back I have had from customers that have used it, they are impressed with its ease of use and how painless the whole deal is. (Note, I personally have never used it).
Hye there. I am a novice currently pursuing postgraduate study in process control.
I have a distillation plant with SNAP-PAC-EB2 brain and would like to interface it with LabView since I will be designing a controller using Matlab software. As such I am requesting help from anyone who may have done it on the workaround or if this topic has already been covered, could someone point me to the right direction? Or can I directly interface Opto22 to communicate with Matlab?
Welcome to the OptoForums! Could you tell us more about your bigger goal – for example what you want to monitor and/or control using the SNAP-PAC-EB2 brain and what will your “controller using Matlab” do?
There are many options for communicating with a SNAP-PAC-EB2 brain. Which one is best for you could depend on these factors. Is Labview a requirement? Matlab?
One of the easiest ways to control/monitor a SNAP-PAC-EB2 brain is using PAC Project Basic (which is included in PAC Project Pro or could be purchased separately).
Of the methods/linked mentioned previously in this thread, those with “Optomux” in the name wouldn’t apply. Also remember that our Product Support is FREE and they’d be happy to help too.
I just looked and sure enough, MatLab has a OPC toolbox available. That means you can scrap LabView and connect MatLab through OPC to the Softpac and then talk directly to all Snap IO via the same PC without using a separate controller. Or you can connect directly out the the Opto22 IO brains with no controller. Opto22 has an OPC server in the Pac Project Pro that you would get if you wanted to use the Softpac controller (PC Based controller). The preferred OPC server however is OPC-UA versions which Kepware has the best implementation of.
If you’re a C++ .net programmer, there is an SDK kit for free download and then you would have direct memory map access to either the tag base in the EB2 or EB1 brains and/or the S1 or the new SoftPac PC based controller.
If you already have OPTO 22 OPC Server (PAC Project Pro) then you can read it using MATLAB OPC Toolbox or by Using I/O Server (OPC Client) in LabVIEW but you still need to install Real-Time Module, DSC Module or NI OPC server so that you can find the I/O server in list.
Wow. Have totally forgotten that I have posted a request here last year. Was not aware my post has been replied :p. I have even thought of rebuilding my algorithm into VB/C++ (on which I have minimal knowledge of) and crack my head to interface with the OptoMMP protocol. Basically what I am trying to do is to feed the temperature/pressure values to my neural network algorithms (in Matlab environment) which in turn would produce an appropriate control action to control the plant, all of which through the installed EB2 brain.
My algorithm would have plus, summation and tansig function, can the PAC Project execute those? Or do I need the PAC Project Pro?
Reason I quoted LabView was simply because ben orchard mentioned how painless it would be using the mentioned driver. It seems there are many ways this can be achieved. It is in my hope it would be the lesser pain compared to the other as I am truly a novice in computer interfacing.
We use LabView on several of our machines. LabView is the HMI, we install Opto OPC Server on the pc/touchscreen. LabView interfaces with the Opto Snap controller via Ethernet using Modbus protocol. LabView has R/W privilege’s.
We have a contractor that develops our NI applications/HMI, we mainly deal with the Opto side. But it does work.
