Emerson’s Lee Neitzel teamed up with OPC Training Institute‘s Randy Kondor to develop a 5-part video series, Getting started with OPC Xi (OPC .NET 3.0) for Programmers. This series is geared toward automation supplier programmers and process manufacturers’ programmers with in-house OPC applications. For process manufacturers, many need to update their OPC custom applications to take advantage of the security and functionality built into Microsoft’s .NET framework.
Randy narrates these “how to” videos and this series includes:
- Download OPC Xi source code from the OPC Foundation (2:49)
- Compile an OPC Xi Wrapper Server (7:07)
- Compile an OPC Xi Discovery Server (4:49)
- Compile an OPC Xi Client (2:17)
- Connect OPC Xi products together (6:32)
Registration is required to view the videos, but I found the process to be pretty quick and painless.
Randy highlights in the initial video where and how to download the OPC Xi, also known as OPC .NET 3.0, source code from the OPC Foundation website. In this download, you will also get all the associated Visual Studio 2008 project files. You will use these files to compile and execute your own OPC Xi products and in-house applications.
In the second video, Randy highlights the changes required to the wrapper server configuration file, the build process, and starting the OPC Xi wrapper server.
In the third video, Randy demonstrates the process of compiling and executing an OPC Xi Discovery Server.
Randy shows the process of compiling and executing an OPC Xi Client in the fourth video.
In the fifth and final video, Randy ties it all together showing the running servers and client. The OPC Xi client is a debugging tool for programmers allowing the client to connect to the server and configure lists of data with simulated values.
I’m you’re like me, having source code and Visual Studio programming software in hand is a dangerous combination. But, if you’re a programmer or have one or more programmers in your organization, these getting started/how to videos might be just what you need to update your OPC applications to the .NET environment.
