Depending on the selected PLC connection, different options are available.
The heartbeat is available for all connections and is explained at the end of the chapter.
Internal [MB] simulator #
To connect to the internal simulator, select the [MB] Simulator option at this point.
No further settings are necessary for the [MB] simulator.
You can also create several simulators for testing.
Siemens PLC (S7 communication Put/Get) #
To establish a connection to a Siemens PLC, select the PLC option.
| IP | Set the IP address of your PLC. If you want to use a soft PLC on the same computer, the IP is: 127.0.0.1. |
| Rack | Rack depends on your hardware configuration. By default, the value should be 0. |
| Slot | slot depends on your hardware configuration. By default, the value should be 0 (S7-300: value: 2). |
Enter the IP address, rack and slot of your controller. Use the button Test PLC connection to check the correctness of your data. If it is possible to establish a connection with your controller, the model and the complete CPU type are displayed.
S7 communication with models S7-1200 & S7-1500 #
To operate the S7-1200 and S7-1500 models, the following two settings must be made.
1. Deactivate optimised block access
As optimised data blocks are not supported by DataSuite, they should be deactivated. To do this, select the properties of the data blocks in Tia Portal and uncheck “Optimised block access” in General attributes.
2. Allow PUT/GET communication and full access
From model S7-1200 with firmware version 4.0 and all S7-1500, PUT/GET communication is disabled by default. To use the software, you must allow PUT/GET communication, as full access to the controller is required. You can find these settings in the device configuration of your PLC under the tab “Protection & Security”. There you select full access as the access level and check the box for PUT/GET communication under connection mechanisms.
PLC – OPC UA #
To establish an OPC UA connection to your PLC, you must make some settings in the PLC.
Open the settings of the PLC and select the item OPC UA. There you can activate the OPC UA server and the standard SIMATIC server interface. Below that you can change the port of the connection (default: 4840).
In the menu item Security you will find the endpoints offered by the PLC. These differ in the respective security settings. Deactivate the endpoints that are not required here. The use of a signed and encrypted connection is recommended.
Further down in the settings you can edit the user administration of the OPC UA Server.
Guest authentication
If you activate guest authentication, anyone can connect to the PLC.
Authentication via username and password
If you select this option, a user name and password must be stored for each connection.
It is recommended to only activate authentication via user name and password.
Should you choose both authentication methods, a guest connection can also always be established, which undermines the security of authentication via user name and password.
Runtime licence
Finally, you must select the OPC UA Runtime licence in the PLC. Then you can load the hardware configuration into the PLC.
After you have made the settings in the PLC, you can configure the connection in DataSuite.
| IP | Set the IP address of your PLC. |
| Port | Enter the port of the OPC UA connection. (PLC settings can be found on the following page) |
| Security | Select the desired security settings of the PLC. This option must be activated in the PLC. |
| Authentication | Select the set authentication. |
OPC UA Server #
To establish a connection to any OPC UA server, enter the corresponding connection parameters.
| Server address | Set the complete address of the OPC UA Server here. Note that this starts with opc.tcp://. |
| Security | Select the desired security settings of the OPC UA Server. |
| Authentication | Select the authentication you have set. |
Read-only mode #
You can activate the read-only mode to prevent any writing from the DataSuite to the PLC. This way you can be sure that the DataSuite does not change any data in the PLC. In this mode, only reading of variable values is possible.
If you try to write a PLC variable in a trigger, a configuration error is displayed and all write attempts are aborted with an error.
Heartbeat #
The heartbeat tells your controller that the software is running and that a connection exists. When the heartbeat is activated, a 0 or a 1 is alternately written into the specified variable every second.
If you use the alarm functions of the DataSuite, it is strongly recommended to use the heartbeat, evaluate it in the PLC and react to it in the PLC if necessary.
To do this, simply check in the PLC that the value of the variable has not changed for several seconds.
