When you hear the term "OPC client", you may initially think of off-the-shelf HMI or SCADA applications. However, it's common in enterprises across most industries for there to be other custom developed software applications that could benefit from access to OPC process data. Or perhaps there is a new custom application you're working on that needs to access OPC process data. The question, then, is how to enable those applications as OPC clients.
In Part 1 of our series on How to Develop Custom OPC Clients, we will cover step-by-step how to use no-code techniques to bind production data to various types of user interface elements for reading, or writing, or both to build a basic OPC client application in Visual Studio.NET.
Watch this video to see how easy it is to build a basic custom OPC client in Visual Studio without writing code using the OPC Data Client.
In this video, we've shown you:
- How to add the required OPC Data Client controls to the Visual Studio toolbox
- How to use Live Binding functionality in the OPC Data Client for no-code binding of component properties to OPC data for the following:
- Reading from tags in an OPC server
- Subscribing to value updates from tags in an OPC server
- Writing values to tags in an OPC server
- Binding the value of an OPC server tag to an Industrial Gadgets visual gauge control
While this how-to video specifically demonstrates no-code development of an OPC DA client, the same Live Binding methods apply for OPC UA connectivity using the OPC Data Client. And for more information on the no-code error handling methods referred to in the video, click here for details.
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