Allen Bradley Unsolicited Ethernet OPC Server

Overview

Kepware's 32 bit Allen Bradley Unsolicited Ethernet device driver works in conjunction with our OPC/DDE Server, KEPServerEX to provide data exchange between OPC & DDE Clients and Allen Bradley PLC-2 compliant PLCs via Ethernet. The Unsolicited driver allows an OPC client application to appear as 1 to 256 AB devices on the network. The slave mode allows the server to receive data by exception from an AB master. As with any slave device, the AB Unsolicited driver will only transfer data when being read or written by a master. KEPServerEX automatically optimizes your data acquisition based on client demand. Data integrity is ensured with our extensive error handling.

This driver is part of the Allen Bradley OPC Server Suite. Purchasing either the Allen Bradley Unsolicited Ethernet OPC Server, Allen Bradley PLC5/SLC505 Ethernet OPC Server, the Allen Bradley ControlLogix Ethernet OPC Server, the Allen-Bradley Data Highway Plus OPC Server or the Allen Bradley DF1 OPC Server driver entitles you to all of the drivers.

Note: Does not require the use of RSLinx licenses.

Devices

Supported Devices

*Allen-Bradley PLC's programmed to send PLC-2 type commands. Devices need not be PLC-2's. Consult your hardware programming manual.

Features

Specific Driver Features

Specific

Acts as a single simulated Allen-Bradley PLC-2.
Up to 256 devices may connect to the simulated PLC-2 at any time.
Sockets used by incoming connections are aged according to activity level.
All major memory and data types supported.

General

Multi-threaded design for optimum performance.
Application Connectivity
Device Connectivity for concurrent devices.
Supports running as a Windows NT Service.
Supports Direct Scaling of device data.
Full Time On-line operation.
CSV file import and exportof server tags.
User Management
Tag Management
Network Interface Selection
Channel Diagnostics provide real-time data.
OPC Diagnostics to view OPC events.
Modem support for all serial drivers.
OPC Quick Client application.
Visual Basic OPC Client with VB Examples.

OPC/DDE

OPC Data Access Version 1.0a
OPC Data Access Version 2.05a
OPC Data Access Version 3.0

Learn more about OPC - Open Process Control

HMI/Client

KEPServerEX has been enhanced to provide the widest range of connectivity of any server product available. KEPServerEX supports the following client server technologies:

FastDDE for Wonderware
SuiteLink for Wonderware
iFIX PDB for Intellution
DDE Format CF_Text
DDE Format AdvancedDDE

To see a list of HMI's and Clients that we support go to our HMI / Client Support page.

Required

Required Software and Hardware

Supported Operating Systems

Windows NT
Windows 2000
Windows Server 2003
Windows XP

PC Hardware

Minimum

400 Mhz Pentium CPU
128 Megs of RAM
100 Megs of Free Hard Drive Space

Recommended

600 Mhz Pentium CPU
512 Megs of RAM
100 Megs of Free Hard Drive Space

Hardware Requirements

For Device and Hardware Requirements see the Devices tab.
Hardware Accessories

Protocol

Communication Protocol

Allen Bradley Ethernet

VB

Visual Basic

KEPServerEX Visual Basic OPC Client
Complex and Simple Visual Basic OPC Client Examples
Using Modems and Visual Basic with KEPServerEX.
Download the Modem and VB Example with Source Code
Knowledge Base

Help

Help/Links

Revisions

Allen Bradley Unsolicited Ethernet OPC Driver Revisions

Driver updates below coincide with Server Release V4.270.416.0 (09/27/07)

All Drivers

- Fixed issue where server menu buttons like 'New', 'Open', 'Exit' would become permanently disabled when attempting to perform auto tag generation on a driver that had missing runtime dependencies.
- Fixed issue that could occur when multiple items with the same scan rate are read by exception and another item is added/asynchronously read/removed at that same rate. This issue resulted in stale data for those tags read by exception.

Driver updates below coincide with Server Release V4.264.401 (06/01/07)

All Drivers

- Fixed issue in the driver library where it was possible to delete a tag prior to stopping it. This would result in the accessing of invalid memory which could eventually result in an exception that would prevent a channel from processing any tags.

Driver updates below coincide with Server Release V4.210.367 (11/17/06)

All Drivers

- Fixed issue where a rapid sequence of item add, sync read, and item remove requests could result in bad OPC quality for some items included in a block sync read and/or sync read timeouts.
- Fixed issue with Unsolicited UDP Mode Ethernet Encapsulation mode, where driver would stop receiving unsolicited messages after sending a message.

Allen-Bradley Unsolicited Ethernet (V4.30.15)

- Added support for EtherNet/IP PLC-2 Unprotected Reads/Writes.

Driver updates below coincide with Server Release V4.110.270 (3/22/04)

All Drivers

- Library fix affecting all drivers.

Driver updates below coincide with Server Release V4.100.239 (7/10/03)

Allen Bradley Unsolicited Ethernet (V4.10.04)

- Added option to drop idle connections.

Driver updates below coincide with Server Release V4.90.237 (6/09/03)

Allen Bradley Unsolicited Ethernet (V4.01.01)

- New Driver