On a Geo SCADA Expert system, you configure the Geo SCADA Expert database so that entries in the database correspond to the plant, control devices, and measuring instruments on your system. This section summarizes the database items that you need to configure in order to read data on SDI-12 devices.
In order to communicate using the SDI-12 protocol, the SDI-12 Driver has to be installed and running on the Geo SCADA Expert servers on your system.
When you configure SDI-12 items in the Geo SCADA Expert database, many of the settings for those items need to correspond to the settings on the SDI-12 devices on your system. Some settings are either fixed (incorporated into the design of the sensor), or are configured by an engineer. You need to have access to, or an understanding of, these settings before you can configure the SDI-12 database items successfully.
For example, you need to know the type of SDI-12 command that you want Geo SCADA Expert to use in order to read the data on each sensor.
You also need to be aware of which optional features are required for each SDI-12 item. These features include:
- Alarm views
- Alarm redirections
- Historic data storage
- User methods.
You can also use core Geo SCADA Expert features with SDI-12 database items, including Lists, Actions, and Mimics. See the core documentation for details.
For each SDI-12 device, you need to configure:
- SDI-12 Channel(s) to represent the communication connections between each SDI-12 sensor and the Geo SCADA Expert server (see Configuring an SDI-12 Channel).
You need to configure a separate SDI-12 channel for each separate communications channel that is available to the SDI-12 driver on your system.
Each channel has to use an RS-232 to SDI-12 adapter.
- At least one SDI-12 Scanner for each SDI-12 sensor that you want to scan. (Configure a scanner for each group of points that you want to scan at a different frequency or time offset.) For further information, see Configuring an SDI-12 Scanner.
- An SDI-12 Analog Point to represent each item of data that is to be read on an SDI-12 sensor.
To minimize the time that it takes to configure the required SDI-12 items, you may want to configure them in the order listed above, as Scanner configuration requires you to specify a channel, and Point configuration requires that you specify a scanner, and so on.