Starting the server – Black Box GEH-6510 User Manual

Page 25

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DDE Server User’s Guide

Chapter Three - Getting Started

•••• 21

than 20 characters long (8 characters if used with a third-party HMI
client). Only alphanumeric characters and underscores are permitted;
the topic name cannot include spaces or special characters, such as: +
* / /, ? () “ ‘.

Com Port

This pull-down menu lists the configured communication ports.
Select the comm port to which this device is attached. If you don’t
see the correct port listed, it was not configured properly in the
previous section. Double-check your port configuration and try again.

Device Type

Select the type of device from this pull-down menu, such as POWER
LEADER EPM (PLEPM). This tells the DDE Server what kind of
register map to expect for this device. (Details of PMCS device
register maps can be found in GEH-6509, the PMCS DDE Server
Interface Reference
.)

Slave Add

Enter the device’s Modbus address. This tells the PMCS DDE Server
what number to call to get data from the device. This address will be
in the range 1 – 247, depending on the device type. See GEH-6502,
POWER LEADER Network Architecture Guide, for details on
Modbus RTU device addressing and Modbus-equivalent addresses
for commnet devices.

Scan Interval
(in msec)

This is the frequency at which the DDE Server will try to scan the
device for data once a DDE request has been made by a client
application. The default is 1000 milliseconds. Leave this alone for the
time being – we’ll discuss it more in Chapter 6, Advanced Options.

Step 2. Now that you’ve set up the device specifics, click OK to return to the Device
Configuration
screen. You should see the device you just added in the list of
Configured Devices.

Repeat these steps for each device on your networks until you’ve configured all the
devices.

At the bottom right of the Device Configuration dialog box, you’ll notice a check
box labeled Activate. This box provides a one-step way to turn a device on or off at
the Server. Make sure this box is checked for each device; devices which are not
Activated will not communicate with the Server.

When you’ve configured all the devices and clicked OK to exit the Device
Configuration
dialog box, you’ll return to the Configuration dialog box. There is
only one button offered here rather than the four configuration options: Close and
Restart Server
. Clicking this button exits Configuration and puts the Server on-
line.

Starting the Server

Clicking the Close and Restart Server button in the Configuration dialog box
automatically puts the PMCS DDE Server on-line. If you click on Cancel instead,
any configuration changes you may have made will be discarded.

The Server will now wait for a DDE conversation to be initiated by a client
application. When it receives a request for data, it interprets the request, fetches the
data from the appropriate device, and passes it on to the client application. The
PMCS DDE Server continues to monitor the requested data at the assigned scan
interval and updates the client if the data changes.

Activate a client application and initiate a DDE request for data (see the client
application documentation for instructions ) to ensure that the Server is running
correctly.

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