TCP/IP connectivity in DasyLAB

[Yonatan]

I am looking for a solution in which an external application will communicate with DasyLab throug TCP/IP. I was looking for information about communication type (tcp/udp) port number and the format that DasyLab expects but could not find such

[CJ_Butler__DASYLab_Pro]

Because this feature is general purpose, there is no one answer to your question. We allow you to specify the TCP/IP address and port, and then give you tools to decode (parse) the data that you recieve back from the device.

DASYLab's ICOM Input module allows you to establish communication with a device via TCP/IP. You need to configure the interface settings to specify the IP address (xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx) and the Port number for the device. For example, there is a Newport Engineering device on the web at http://206.29.25.30/ -- DASYLab can read it from port 1000. This is specific to that device.

There are three things that you need to know about your device:

TCP/IP address and Port

Data request command - what does DASYLab need to send to the device to receive the information that you require? For the Newport Engineering device the command is
*01X01\r

Data Format - as with the RS232 Input, we can support many devices by flexibly parsing the data that the device sends to DASYLab. The Newport device responds with
01X01069.5
where the 01X01 is just repeating the command, the the data is 069.5 -- 5 ASCII characters.
To parse this, I have set up the Data Format command to be
"01X01"5a

Determining how to work with this device was a combination of reading the manual and trial and error. I tried a command using the ICOM Monitor mode, and was able to see what commands worked and the response.

If you are trying to talk to an existing device, please include information about that device. If you are trying to design a new device that DASYLab can communication with, please tell us that, as well.

NOTE -- The ICOM module is not MODBUS TCP protocol. It is more similar to the RS232 module because it accepts a free form response, not a fixed protocol.

Note that there is another way to talk to devices on an ethernet connection -- the OPC Client module (see the DATASOCKET Import module in the Network group) allows you to communcate with OPC servers on your network. This is a fixed protocol, well suited to networks.

I hope that this helps. This is also posted on the www.dasylab.net forum where you asked a similar question.

[Yonatan]

Thanks, Actually the solution I am trying to build is based on 'push model' and not on 'pull modal' - which means that the external APP will establish a connection with DasyLab's socket and push data into it. Is it possible to work with DasyLab in such way ?.

If it is not possible there is another option I can think about - if DasyLab knows how to bind to an external's app socket and notify that it is in listen state, and that it is possible to start sending it data then I will be able to push data into it in the expected specific format which is ?

What do u think ?

[CJ_Butler__DASYLab_Pro]

The DASYLab feature is based on DASYLab either pulling the data, or simply listening. DASYLab does not have a general purpose feature that would allow another application to open a connection to DASYLab and push data.

I did just test a system where DASYLab opened a port,and simply listened. It parses the received data correctly, although it seemed to have a problem with undelimited data (the data was 4 byte IEEE32 format, with no separators).

You can define the format -- from ascii (relatively slow) to various binary formats (faster).

[zac_schramm]

Hi, I was exploring the ICOM module and not sure I understand the intent here.

I would like to send data from one instance of dasylab to another on a different PC.  I was able to successfully do this with the RS-232 modules and RS-485 USB adapters.  

I am wondering if I can also use the ICOM module to have one instance listening and another send data out over TCP/IP.

The sending (ICOM Output) instance has a timeout error after not long of running and the listening instance never shows any data incoming.  Both are on the same network, and I looked at firewall concerns and haven't found anything yet.

I guess my 1st question is, should this work?

Thanks,

-Zac

[stephan.gerhards]

Hello

DASYlab is allways a TCP/IP client, so you need a TCP/IP server that allows dasylab to connect to.

Another way you can try to transfer data from one daylab to an other is to use datasockets. The NI Datasocket stack is installed with dasylab and you will find a  simple to use datasocket server too. With this you can create some items and connect both Dasylabs in the same network to this datasocket server.

Maybe this helps

Stephan