15.2 Example

This section gives an illustrative example of the Data Bridge feature. Settings may differ depending on your project’s configuration.

Example: Exchanging PLC values using the data bridge function

In this section, you will register a tag-based model and transfer a value from PLC A to PLC B. PLC A is connected by serial, while PLC B is connected by Ethernet. Both will be connected to the Xpanel.

a) Enter the device names as ‘PLC A’ and ‘PLC B’ in the [Tools] – [I/O Device] menu. Register PLC A as a serial device, and PLC B as an Ethernet device. Add a station for each and configure the remaining I/O device settings.

b) Create a real tag for each PLC. Enter the I/O addresses ‘D100’ for ‘PLC A’ and ‘D200’ for ‘PLC B’.

c) Go to [Tools] – [Data Bridge] and add a data bridge model. Select ‘Tag Base' for the model type and ‘Always’ for the 'Sync. Properties’ option. When the value in PLC A changes, the value in PLC B will be matched with it immediately.

d) Add tags to the model to synchronize the values. Enter ‘PLCA.D100’ for the original tag and ‘PLCB.D200’ for the target tag.

e) Launch the project in Xpanel. Whenever D100 in PLC A updates, D200 in PLC B should update automatically. Notice that the inverse is not true: updating D200 in PLC B does not change the value of D100 in PLC A. To make this happen, you must add another tag pair with D200 as the source and D100 as the destination.