Fisher ROC Driver

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The Fisher ROC driver is used to communicate with devices that support the ROC protocol.

Related information:

Related Application Properties

ROCReadOnStartup - If true (1), the ROC driver will read all values when the system starts. Defaults to false (0).

ROCDriverSharedRPC - When true (1) indicates that the same RPC. drivernameSharedRPC properties are stored in Settings.Startup, not Settings.Dynamic. Changes require a restart of the application in order to take effect.

ROCMaxPointReadDataSize - Defaults to 239. The maximum number of values requested in a single point read. (opcode 167)

ROCMaxParmReadDataSize - Defaults to 239. The maximum number of values requested in a single parm read. (opcode 180)

ROCIgnoreFatalErrOnParmRead - Defaults to 0. If TRUE (1), allows the driver to attempt to continue after encountering a fatal error.

ROCDriverFailoverCount - Defaults to 1. Number of communication failures before switching to backup.

ROCNewSiteDailyHisSeconds - Defaults to 604800. Sets the default history length for daily point read history in seconds

ROCNewSiteHourlyHisSeconds - Defaults to 172800. Sets the default history length for hourly point read history in seconds

ROCIgnoreFatalErrOnHistRead - Defaults to 0. Allows the driver to attempt to continue after encountering a fatal error reading history

Fisher ROC Driver properties ID tab

The ID tab of every tag includes the same common elements: Name, Area, Description, and Help ID.

Name:

Uniquely identifies each tag in the application. If the tag is a child of another, the parent names will be displayed in a separate area before the name field.

You may right-click on the tag's name to add or remove a conditional start expression.

Area

The area field is used to group similar tags together. By defining an area, you make it possible to:

Filter for particular tag groups when searching in the tag browser
Link dial-out alarm rosters to Alarm tags having a particular area
Limit the number of tags loaded upon startup.
Filter the alarm display to show only certain areas.
Filter tag selection by area when building reports

When working with Parent-Child tag structures, the area property of all child tags will automatically match the configured area of a parent. Naturally, you can change any tag's area as required. In the case of a child tag, the field background will turn orange to indicate that you have applied an override.

To use the area field effectively, you might consider setting the same Area for each I/O driver and its related I/O tags to group all the tags representing the equipment processes installed at each I/O device. You might also consider naming the Area property for the physical location of the tag (i.e. a station or name of a landmark near the location of the I/O device). For serial port or Roster tags, you might configure the Area property according to the purpose of each tag, such as System or Communications.

You may define as many areas as you wish and you may leave the area blank for some tags (note that for Modem tags that are to be used with the Alarm Notification System, it is actually required that the area field be left blank).

To define a new area, type the name in the field. It will immediately be added. To use an existing area, use the drop-down list feature. Re-typing an existing area name is not recommended since a typo or misspelling will result in a second area being created.

There is no tool to remove an area name from VTScada since such a tool is unnecessary. An area definition will exist as long as any tag uses it and will stop existing when no tag uses it (following the next re-start).

Description

Tag names tend to be brief. The description field provides a way to give each tag a human-friendly note describing its purpose. While not mandatory, the description is highly recommended.

Tag descriptions are displayed in the tag browser, in the list of tags to be selected for a report and also on-screen when the operator holds the pointer over the tag’s widget. For installations that use the Alarm Notification System, the description will be spoken when identifying the tag that caused the alarm.

The description field will store up to 65,500 characters, but this will exceed the practical limits of what can be displayed on-screen.

This note is relevant only to those with a multilingual user interface:
When editing any textual parameter (description, area, engineering units...) always work in the phrase editor. Any changes made directly to the textual parameter will result in a new phrase being created rather than the existing phrase being changed.
In a unilingual application this makes no difference, but in a multilingual application it is regarded as poor practice.

Help Search Key

Used only by those who have created their own CHM-format context sensitive help files to accompany their application. Refer to Custom Help Files

Server List

Select (or create) a named server list. (Driver Server Lists) Servers for the list must be defined using the Application Configuration dialog, as described in Servers for Specific Services. Smaller sites that do not have multiple servers, or that use only the default server list, need not configure this field.

ROC Driver properties Settings tab

The following properties are configured in the Settings tab:

Device Type

From the drop list, select the ROC device type being configured. Options include:

ROC300 ROCPAC
FloBoss 407
ROC300 FlashPAC
ROC800
FloBoss 103
FloBoss 107
ROC800L
FloBoss 107 - Alternate ROCNOC
FloBoss 107 - Surface Control Manager
FloBoss 103 - Surface Control Manager

Station ID

"Station" refers to the ROC device.

The ID is the identifier used by each ROC device so that it knows which messages it is meant to respond to.

Station Group

The Group is used to further distinguish one device from another, especially in cases where there are more than 255 ROC devices on the network. For example, a message addressed to ID 100 in Group 2 will not be answered by ID 100 of Group 3.

Host ID and Host Group

"Host" refers to the VTScada application.

The VTScada driver is given an ID and a Group so that the response messages from the RTU can be delivered properly.

Device Clock Time Zone

The time zone of the clock in the device. This is used to correct the time-stamped data, read from the device by VTScada, for storage using UTC format. \

Regardless of the time zone selected with this option, the driver assumes that the device does not adjust its clock for daylight savings time (DST). Take care to ensure that this is the case for your system.

Uses Server Time Zone (no DST) - assumes that the device is in the same time zone as the server.
Device Clock In UTC - the clock in the device is set to UTC. Strongly recommended.
Actual Time Zone - select the actual time zone that the device is located in

Custom Point Definition File

If configuring for custom point types, select the .CSV file holding the definition for those types. This file must have the same format as the file C:\VTScada\VTS\ROCPointDefinitions.CSV, which is found in every installation of VTScada. Refer to: ROC Address Storage.

ROC Driver properties Communications tab

Port

The port tag through which this driver communicates with a device. This is normally a serial port tag or a TCP/IP tag.

Time-Out Limit

The length of time, in seconds, that the driver should wait for a reply from the device.

Transmit Delay (sec)

Will delay the sending of messages. ROC field devices using RF links can hold the carrier on for a short period of time after sending a response message back to the host, resulting in missed messages. Use this to force a delay, giving the field device a chance to close the carrier. The delay defaults to 0 seconds

Retries

The number of times to retry a message before declaring an error.

Use only if the driver is connected to a Serial port. When using TCP/IP, do not set to any value other than 0.

Hold

Check this to have I/O tags attached to the driver hold their last value in the event of a communication failure. If not checked, tags will have their value set to invalid on a communication failure.

Store Last Output Values

Flag indicating that the last values written to the device should be maintained. If true, the driver will maintain the last values written for each address, allowing these value to either be re-written manually or automatically.

Automatic Rewrites

Flag indicating the driver should automatically rewrite the last value written to each address upon successful establishment of communications after a driver error occurred.