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SINUMERIK OPC CLASSIC DEVICE DRIVER

This highly configurable CNCnetPDM device driver for Siemens Sinumerik 840D controllers with
OPC classic enables you to monitor and output machine-, process- and quality data from machines
with these controllers. It also allows you to change or write parameters and variables on these
devices.

You can dynamically define your own set of items (up to 30) that can be enabled and disabled on a
per machine basis by an INI file that is automatically created with reasonable default values for
each machine configured. This INI file also allows you to define your own names for every tag.

PREREQUISITES
1. An additional local account for user ‘auduser’ which is member of the ‘Administrators’ group
with the same password used by user ‘auduser’ at the controller has to be setup on your PC.
2. Microsoft .NET 2.0 has to be installed on your PC
3. OPC Core Components have to be installed on your PC
4. Firewall at your PC has to be disabled or adjusted
5. Firewall at the controller has to be disabled or adjusted
6. You have to get data from the controller with our CNCnetPDM.OpcDA.SimpleClient.exe utility.

SETUP CNCNETPDM
 Download CNCnetPDM and install it as described in the quick-start-guide.
 Download the Sinumerik OPC classic device driver, extract all content of sinumerikda_dll.zip
into the folder where you have CNCnetPDM installed.
 Edit CNCnetPDM.ini and add a new device as described in the quick start guide point 7. If you
already have an entry in section [RS232] for a machine with a Sinumerik controller you can
simply copy and paste this line and change its content.
 Change the line as follows:

FIG 1: Configure Sinumerik device driver in CNCnetPDM.ini

For machines with Sinumerik 840D controllers you only have to change the last parameter (1) to
sinumerikda.dll. Of course you also have to make sure that IP Address or DNS Hostname of your
controller are correct.

SINUMERIK OPC CLASSIC DEVICE DRIVER - DESCRIPTION AND USAGE

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USAGE
 Start CNCnetPDM as user ‘auduser’ (Shift key + right click CNCnetPDM.exe -> Run as
different user), foreground program is sufficient (Start thread)
 CNCnetPDM automatically copies the original sinumerikda.dll and appends the machine
number as configured in the INI file, e.g. sinumerikda_1001.dll for machine 1001.
 In addition an INI file with the same name is automatically created by the device driver, e.g.
sinumerikda_1001.ini for your first machine.
 Double click CNCnetControl, if your device number is 1001 and the device name is
SINUMERIK #1 the output should be similar to the one below:

FIG 2: CNCnetControl (Sinumerik)

Here the machine (1) shows up as connected (2) which is good. On the right side (3) you see the
acquired data:

 The line starting with O contains items defined in the INI file of the device that should be
output to section 1. If you didn’t change the INI file you get something like the following:

1001 01/30/2018 02:05:38 PM O STATN| 3| STATT| Manual| MODEN| 2| MODET| AUTO| PRGSN|
5| PRGST| Aborted| 10000000008

Every item has a description followed by its value. All descriptions and values are delimited by
pipe ‘|’ symbols. This allows CNCnetPDM to create a database record for every item.

With an unmodified INI file the initially configured items are:

SINUMERIK OPC CLASSIC DEVICE DRIVER - DESCRIPTION AND USAGE

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ID NAME DESCRIPTION

0 AUTOM Automatic mode (numeric)

1 PRGST Program status (numeric)

2 PARTC Part counter (numeric)

3 STATN OEE Device state (numeric)

4 STATT OEE Device state (text)

5 MODEN Device mode (number)

6 MODET Device mode (text)

7 PRGSN Program state (number)

8 PRGST Program state (text)

9 PRGMN Name of the selected program

10 STOPC Stop condition

11 CHANS Channel status

12 TOOLN Tool number

13 SPDSP Spindle speed

14 OVRSP Override spindle percent

15 FEEDR Actual feed rate

16 OVRFD Override feed

17 PARTC Actual part count

18 PARTR Required parts

SINUMERIK OPC CLASSIC DEVICE DRIVER - DESCRIPTION AND USAGE

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19 MFUNC Active M functions

20 RVAR1 Value of R variable 1

21 RVAR2 Value of R variable 2

FIG 3: IDs, names and description of items

SETUP BACKGROUND SERVICE

To run CNCnetPDM as a background service for controllers with OPC Classic the service
mandatorily has to run under the ‘auduser’ user account. To setup a CNCnetPDM background
service proceed as follows:

 Right click CNCnetPDM, select ‘Run as Administrator’

 Click button [Install]
 In the following dialog, section Service Account enter the name of your PC followed by a
backslash and username auduser e.g. TESTPC\auduser
 Enter the password for user auduser twice and click button [Ok], the dialog closes. Do not
start the service.
 As user ‘auduser’ does NOT have the right to ‘Log on as a service’ one additional step is
needed.
 Open a command prompt with elevated privileges and type in secpol.msc.
 Navigate to Security Settings -> Local Policies -> User Right Assignment.
 Open ‘Log on as a service’ and add user ‘auduser’.

Now you should be able to start the background service without any issues.

See also: Setup CNCnetPDM as a background service

ADJUST ITEMS
This device driver enables to dynamically add, group, enable or disable items and change their
names. The INI file automatically created by the device driver for every machine contains sections
that allow you to control its behavior.

Section [GENERAL] contains information about global parameters used by the driver on startup,
please only change the number from Alive command = 0 to another number if your controller does
NOT reply to command ‘/Bag/State/opMode’. Use our test program to check if you can read this
OPC item.

Commands defines the number of OPC commands you’d like to execute, maximum value = 30.

SINUMERIK OPC CLASSIC DEVICE DRIVER - DESCRIPTION AND USAGE

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OPC Items you query are organized in sections e.g. [2]. Every section contains entries where you
can define names and parameters for a specific OPC item.

Description of the numeric sections:

Entry Description

[0] Section identifier, numbers starting with 0 are queried

Active If you set this to 0 the command is not executed

Name A short name (max 5 characters) to describe the item e.g. STATN for status number

Comment A comment that describes the command (optional)

Command OPC command to be executed e.g. ‘/Channel/State/progStatus’ for NC program

status. The command ‘cnc_oeestate’ executes several OPC commands and
calculates output relevant for OEE, see section ‘Output item’ and chapter
‘Commands’ below.

Output For normal OPC commands like ‘/Channel/State/stopCond’ this is NOT needed. Only
item for command ‘cnc_oeestate’ you can enter the values described in chapter
‘Commands’ below.

Output You can output data to 3 sections that may contain up to 256 characters. 1 goes to
section section ‘O’, 2 to ‘A’ and 3 to ‘F’. If data in one section exceeds the maximum length
you can send items to a different section. Make sure you have entries CollectOrders,
CollectFeeder and CollectQuality enabled (=1) in CNCnetPDM.ini.

FIG 4: Description of a device INI file section

Note: To change commands, switch items on or off or alter its name while CNCnetPDM is
running open the INI file with a text editor such as notepad, make the desired changes and save
the file. To apply the changes immediately you can click on the machine in CNCnetControl on the
left side followed by clicking buttons ‘Close’ and ‘Open’ above the section ‘Devices’.

SINUMERIK OPC CLASSIC DEVICE DRIVER - DESCRIPTION AND USAGE

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COMMANDS
Here you can find information about commands and output items that can be used with this
driver. In general you can use all commands supported by Sinumerik 840D controllers with OPC
classic. See the ‘SINUMERIK 840D Parameter Manual’ for details or contact us if you need help.

Command cnc_oeestate
This special command is not a real OPC item like ‘/Channel/State/progStatus’ for NC program
status. It executes several OPC commands and calculates output relevant for OEE. It also
translates numeric output of specific OPC queries into text.

COMMAND OUTPUT ITEM NOTES

cnc_oeestate statenumber Numeric OEE state of the device (2 = producing, 3 = manual, 4

= interrupted, 5 = error)

cnc_oeestate statetext State of the device as text (producing, manual, interrupted, error)

cnc_oeestate modenumber Numeric running mode of the controller (0 = JOG, 1 = MDA, 2 =

AUTO

cnc_oeestate modetext Running mode of the controller (text output)

cnc_oeestate prgstatenumber NC program state (numeric) (0 = Undefined, 1 = Interrupted, 2 =

Stopped, 3 = Started, 4 =Waiting, 5 = Aborted)

cnc_oeestate prgstatetext NC program state (text)

FIG 5: Description of command ‘cnc_oeestate’

SINUMERIK OPC CLASSIC DEVICE DRIVER - DESCRIPTION AND USAGE

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WRITE DATA
CNCnetPDM for Sinumerik 840D controllers with OPC classic also supports writing and changing
of data on these devices from a remote PC. Although writing of ALL writable OPC items is
supported it is highly recommended to start with simple commands like changing ‘R variables’. To
do so proceed as follows:

With an unmodified INI file for a controller CNCnetPDM queries two ‘R variables’, section [20] = ‘R
variable 1’, section [21] = ‘R variable 2’. To change the value of these 2 variables CNCnetPDM has
to be running and you should see data for RVAR1 and RVAR2 via CNCnetControl, section ‘F’.

To change the value of a parameter first click on the device in the left pane (1). Then click on
button [Cmd] (2). In the drop down box below number (3) select or input 21. Enter a new numeric
value into the text box below command text (4) here 1500. Click button [OK] (5). You can see the
new value in the ‘Device Data’ area in the right pane (6).

FIG 6: Change R-Variable on Sinumerik 840D controller

All successful write actions and errors are written to the device’s log file in subfolder \log.

SINUMERIK OPC CLASSIC DEVICE DRIVER - DESCRIPTION AND USAGE

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TIPS
To quickly test and build a working INI file for your controller you can use our tool
devicedrivertester. If used with this driver the program creates INI file sinumerikda.ini. To use this
file for CNCnetPDM you can simply append an underscore and the machine number e.g.
sinumerikda_1001.ini for device number 1001.

If you want to add additional items (up to 30 in total) first adjust the number of commands in
section [GENERAL]. Then, copy and paste the last numeric section and do not forget to adjust the
section number and its content!

LICENSING
This device driver requires the most recent version of CNCnetPDM and also works with a free
license. However, in this mode you only get output for the first item configured in your INI file.
With a valid license you are able to output the result of up to 30 functions per reading cycle, see
licensing for details.

TROUBLESHOOTING
The device driver writes a log file entry for any communication issue to the log file of the device.
The file can be found in subdirectory \log of your CNCnetPDM program folder. The file format for
the log file is log_ + device number + _ + date.txt. Please check this file first if you observe an
issue.

If the machine shows a red icon, state disconnected and you get just output E = 0 the machine is
not reachable at all. This has nothing to do with the device driver, the controller is switched off,
it’s a network issue, DNS Hostname or IP Address is wrong.

If the machine shows a green icon, state connected but you just get output E = 1 the machine is
reachable but the controller does not respond to commands, check your controller setup and the
parameters used in section [RS232] of CNCnetPDM.ini.Please use the tool
CNCnetPDM.OpcDA.SimpleClient.exe to check if the machine replies to commands.

If you do get numeric device states but not any of the preconfigured items please make sure that
entries CollectOrders, CollectQuality and CollectFeeder are set to 1 in section [General] of
CNCnetPDM.ini.

If specific items are not acquired check first with CNCnetPDM.OpcDA.SimpleClient.exe that you
get output. Also make sure that the numeric section of the item in the device drivers INI file is
activated and has an entry for ‘Name’, inactive or items with empty names are not acquired. Also
check that you didn’t misspell entries for command and output item in your device driver INI file.

SINUMERIK OPC CLASSIC DEVICE DRIVER - DESCRIPTION AND USAGE

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