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 and write data to the Simatic S7-200, S7-300, and S7-400 series of PLCs.
In order to communicate with Simatic S7 PLCs, the Simatic S7 Driver has to be installed and running on the Geo SCADA Expert servers on your system.
When you configure Simatic S7 items in the Geo SCADA Expert database, many of the settings for those items need to correspond to the settings on the Simatic S7 PLCs on your system. Some settings are either fixed (incorporated into the design of the PLC), or are configured by an engineer. You need to have access to, or an understanding of, these settings before you can configure the Simatic S7 database items successfully.
For instance, you need to know the location of the point data that you want Geo SCADA Expert to scan on each Simatic S7 PLC.
You also need to be aware of which optional features are required for each Simatic S7 item. These features include:
- Alarm views
- Alarm redirections
- Historic data storage
- User methods.
You can also use core Geo SCADA Expert features with Simatic S7 database items, including Lists, Actions, and Mimics. See the core documentation for details.
For each Simatic S7 device, you need to configure:
- Simatic S7 Channel(s) to represent the communication connections between the Simatic S7-200, S7-300, or S7-400 series of PLC(s) and the Geo SCADA Expert server (see Configuring a Simatic S7 Channel).
For Serial Communications, you need to configure one channel per adapter.
For TCP Communications, configure one channel to be used by all Simatic NET-connected PLCs.
- At least one Simatic S7 Scanner for each PLC that the Simatic S7 driver is to scan (see Configuring a Simatic S7 Scanner).
Configure a scanner for each group of points that you want to scan at a different frequency, or that reside in a different area of memory on a PLC.
- A Simatic S7 Point for each separate item of data that is to be read from or written to in a Simatic S7-200, S7-300 or S7-400 PLC (see Points Used on Simatic S7 Scanners).
You can associate multiple points with each Simatic S7 Scanner.
To minimize the time that it takes to configure the Simatic S7 items, you may want to configure them in the order listed above, as Scanner configuration requires that you specify a Channel, and Point configuration requires that you specify a Scanner, and so on.