Kepware, simulating devices to test HMI

[Luke Patterson]

I'd like to run some simple tests on my HMI - e.g. toggle a bit coming from Kepware to make sure my button starts blinking I've had some luck with "Simulation Mode" in conjunction with the "Quick Client", but I quickly run into problems with Read-Only tags. When I try to edit Read-Only tags, I get the normally expected error in the Kepware logs about my invalid attempt to write to a Read-Only tag. Any ideas on how to simulate the data coming from Kepware without connecting real devices? Ideally, I'd like to flip a "simulate" option in Kepware, and then be able to set the values that get read by my HMI. I don't want to change my HMI for testing and I don't want to edit my Kepware project too much (redirecting aliases, creating mirrored tree of tags using some other driver, etc.) Thanks.

[Tech Fred]

Simulate mode is an echo function using the group update rate to echo any changes made to a tag to other clients/groups monitoring that with the same update rate. There is now way to override the access writes of an item. Your options are as follows. 1. Use the Simulator driver to create a project that does not have to be set into simulation mode. You can use the same structure as you currently have. If you create a second device with the same device address you can create tags that are read.write access for the read only tags and change the data there, seeing it in other device. 2. Depending upon the driver you are using we may have a slave(RTU) version of the driver which you could configure on a second PC and use that to simulate a live device. Fred Loveless Applications Manager Kepware Technologies

[Luke Patterson]

Thanks, Fred. (I didn't receive notification of your reply, I just happened to check back now.) for Option 1: Here's an example of an item address I need - "S3:WI4". That is a valid "Word" address for the "AutomationDirect EBC" driver. The simulator driver doesn't allow me to add "S3:WI4" because I think it expects it to be a "String". for Option 2: Does the "AutomationDirect EBC" driver have the "slave" option?