Siemens S7 200/300/400 TCP/IP Ethernet OPC Server

Overview

Kepware's 32 bit Siemens S7-200/300/400 Ethernet device driver works in conjunction with our OPC Server KEPServerEX, to provide data exchange between OPC Clients and Siemens S7-200, S7-300 and S7-400 PLCs using TCP/IP Ethernet protocol. The S7-200/300/400 Ethernet driver talks directly to the S7 PLC using a standard PC network interface card, no additional software packages or libraries are required. KEPServerEX automatically optimizes your data acquisition based on client demand. Specialized block read and write optimizations automatically increase the speed of many applications by 3-4 times when using CP243, CP343, and CP443 communications processors.

The Siemens Ethernet device driver also supports the NetLink adapter cable. The NetLink adapter provides a low cost method of accessing either a Siemens S7-300 or S7-400 PLC via Ethernet without the need of the CP343 or CP443 communications card. NetLink offers a considerable savings for budget conscience projects.

This product is part of a Suite and when it is purchased you will receive all drivers in the suite. Siemens OPC Server Suite.

Devices

Supported Devices

Device	Note
S7-200	Family
S7-300	Family, NetLink supported
S7-400	Family, NetLink supported

Features

Specific Driver Features

Specific

Supports Multiple Connection for each device.
Supports the CP-243, CP-343 and CP-443 TCP/IP Communications Cards.
Supports access on PC/PG/OP access ports.
Memory Types Supported: I, E, Q, A, M, F, T, C, Z, and Data Block Access.
Bit Level Access is supported.
Supports Low Cost NetLink Communications adapter.
NetLink Configuration Utility. (Gateway from Ethernet to S7 MPI)

General

Multi-threaded design for optimum performance.
Application Connectivity
Device Connectivity for concurrent devices.
Supports running as a Windows NT Service.
Supports Direct Scaling of device data.
Full Time On-line operation.
CSV file import and exportof server tags.
User Management
Tag Management
Network Interface Selection
Channel Diagnostics provide real-time data.
OPC Diagnostics to view OPC events.
Modem support for all serial drivers.
OPC Quick Client application.
Visual Basic OPC Client with VB Examples.

OPC/DDE

OPC Data Access Version 1.0a
OPC Data Access Version 2.05a
OPC Data Access Version 3.0

Learn more about OPC - Open Process Control

HMI/Client

KEPServerEX has been enhanced to provide the widest range of connectivity of any server product available. KEPServerEX supports the following client server technologies:

FastDDE for Wonderware
SuiteLink for Wonderware
iFIX PDB for Intellution
DDE Format CF_Text
DDE Format AdvancedDDE

To see a list of HMI's and Clients that we support go to our HMI / Client Support page.

Required

Required Software and Hardware

Supported Operating Systems

Windows NT
Windows 2000
Windows Server 2003
Windows XP

PC Hardware

Minimum

400 Mhz Pentium CPU
128 Megs of RAM
100 Megs of Free Hard Drive Space

Recommended

600 Mhz Pentium CPU
512 Megs of RAM
100 Megs of Free Hard Drive Space

Hardware Requirements

For Device and Hardware Requirements see the Devices tab.
Hardware Accessories

Protocol

Communication Protocol

Siemens TCP/IP Ethernet

VB

Visual Basic

KEPServerEX Visual Basic OPC Client
Complex and Simple Visual Basic OPC Client Examples
Using Modems and Visual Basic with KEPServerEX.
Download the Modem and VB Example with Source Code
Knowledge Base

Help

Help/Links

Revisions

Siemens TCP/IP Ethernet OPC Driver Revisions

Driver updates below coincide with Server Release V4.280.435.0 (04/30/08)

Siemens TCP/IP Ethernet (V4.70.70.0)

- Fixed issue where STRING tags with "Maximum Length" field set to 0 would read as an empty string. We now return the whole string not to exceed 210 characters.

Driver updates below coincide with Server Release V4.270.416.0 (09/27/07)

All Drivers

- Fixed issue where server menu buttons like 'New', 'Open', 'Exit' would become permanently disabled when attempting to perform auto tag generation on a driver that had missing runtime dependencies.
- Fixed issue that could occur when multiple items with the same scan rate are read by exception and another item is added/asynchronously read/removed at that same rate. This issue resulted in stale data for those tags read by exception.

Driver updates below coincide with Server Release V4.264.401 (06/01/07)

All Drivers

- Fixed issue in the driver library where it was possible to delete a tag prior to stopping it. This would result in the accessing of invalid memory which could eventually result in an exception that would prevent a channel from processing any tags.

Driver updates below coincide with Server Release V4.222.376 (01/26/07)

Siemens TCP/IP Ethernet (V4.62.62)

- Fixed issue where S7-200 timers (T) and counters (C, HC) were affected by the byte order option when they should not be.

Driver updates below coincide with Server Release V4.210.367 (11/17/06)

All Drivers

- Fixed issue where a rapid sequence of item add, sync read, and item remove requests could result in bad OPC quality for some items included in a block sync read and/or sync read timeouts.
- Fixed issue with Unsolicited UDP Mode Ethernet Encapsulation mode, where driver would stop receiving unsolicited messages after sending a message.

Siemens TCP/IP Ethernet (V4.52.58)

- Fixed Timer and Counter read issue for Netlink S7-300/400 models.

Driver updates below coincide with Server Release V4.201.359 (07/19/06)

Siemens TCP/IP Ethernet (V4.52.57)

- Added optimizations to the method this driver uses for tag address validation.
- Fixed issue with reading timer/counter values for S7-300/400 models.

Driver updates below coincide with Server Release V4.200.353 (03/24/06)

Siemens TCP/IP Ethernet (V4.50.51)

- Fixed issue handling Peripheral IO.

Driver updates below coincide with Server Release V4.190.341 (11/23/05)

Siemens TCP/IP Ethernet (V4.40.46)

- Added support for Simatic Net Data Block Format Identifiers (subtype): X, B, W, CHAR, INT, DWORD, DINT and REAL (i.e. DB1,REAL0). X arrays are not supported.
- Changed the default type for certain Data Block subtypes: DBW and DW from Short to Word. Short is still valid. DBD and DD from Long to DWord. Long is still valid.
- Added LBCD support for suffix BCD used on DWords.
- Added support for 3rd party syntaxing. Syntax included for Simatic Net, INAT, Softing and Applicom.

Driver updates below coincide with Server Release V4.170.328 (5/19/05)

Siemens TCP/IP Ethernet (V4.30.40)

- Added Inter-Request Delay Support
- Fix performance issue for blocks of different scan rates.
- Tags are no longer deactivated when device responds with an error code. Instead such tags will be invalidated and retried on the next scan.
- Added STRING support for Data Blocks.
- Fixed issue handling mass writes. Observed with synchronous i/o transactions.

Driver updates below coincide with Server Release V4.160.317 (3/17/05)

Siemens TCP/IP Ethernet (V4.23.33)

- Fixed issue handling mass writes. Observed with synchronous I/O transactions.

Driver updates below coincide with Server Release V4.160.316 (2/11/05)

Siemens TCP/IP Ethernet (V4.22.32)

- Fixed connection issues encountered with WinLC upon cable disconnect/reconnect.

Driver updates below coincide with Server Release V4.150.304 (11/12/04)

Siemens TCP/IP Ethernet (V4.21.28)

- Changed the default data type to String for Byte references (ie. MB, DBx.DBB) using the .len notation where len > 7.

Driver updates below coincide with Server Release V4.141.293 (7/22/04)

Siemens TCP/IP Ethernet (V4.21.27)

- Performance enhancement will speed up your OPC communications by up to 3-4 times.
- Added NetLink Configuration Utility for models 300 and 400.

Driver updates below coincide with Server Release V4.110.270 (3/22/04)

All Drivers

- Library fix affecting all drivers.

Driver updates below coincide with Server Release V4.90.237 (5/10/03)

All Drivers

All drivers have been updated to support 32 channels. (Exceptions are DDE Client driver, Modbus Plus, and SattBus).