Overview: Setting Up the Driver

The following is a general overview of the steps necessary for setting up your I/O driver.

1. Know your process hardware

• What type of cable are you using?
• What is the station number for each device?
• What addresses do you want to access and what data do you want to retrieve?
• What is the method of communication: Direct Connection, Telephone Modem, or Radio Transmission?
• What are the bandwidth limitations of your network and hardware?

2. Know your OPC server

• Item ID
• Access Path
• Requested Data Type
• Asynchronous vs. Synchronous I/O

3. Choose the configuration method

• Choosing a Method for Configuring Your Driver

4. Configure the I/O driver

• Configuring Servers
• Configuring Items
• Configuring Groups
• Setting Default Values for Driver, Servers, Groups, and Items

5. Check the I/O driver status

• Using Statistics Mode

6. Test driver communication with the process hardware

• Getting Basic Communication