Connect To Southbound Devices

Step 1, Add A Southbound Device

Create a southbound device node to connect to a real device or simulator.

Select South Devices -> Configuration menu to enter the southbound device management interface, and click Add Device to add deivce nodes and add a new southbound device:

• Name: fill in the name of the device, such as modbus-tcp-1;
• Plugin: select the plugin of modbus-tcp from the drop-down box.

Step 2, Setting Southbound Device’s Parameters

Configure the parameters required for Neuron to establish a connection with the device. In the upper right corner, you can select a list or card to display southward equipment

Click the Device Configuration button on the southbound device card to enter the device configuration interface:

• Device IP Address: fill in the IP of the PC where PeakHMI Slave Simulators software is installed;
• Device Port: fill in the port used by the simulator. Port 502 is used by default;
• Recv Timeout: The unit is ms, and the default is 3,000. If no message is received after the set time, an error will be reported;
• Click Submit to complete the equipment configuration, and the equipment card will automatically enter the working state of Running.

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The configuration parameters required by each device are different. Please refer to Southbound Drivers for detailed description of southbound device parameters.

After the southbound device/northbound application is successfully created, a newly created card will appear in the southbound/northbound management interface, as shown in the following figure.

This device card contains the following information:

• Name: the unique name provided by the user for the southbound equipment/northbound application. After setting, the name cannot be modified temporarily.
• Device/application configuration: Click this button to enter the configuration interface, which is used to set the parameter settings required for connecting Neuron with southbound devices/northbound applications.
• Data statistics：statistics node card information.
• More
  • DEBUG log: print the node debug log, and restore the default log level after ten minutes.
  • Delete: delete this node from the list of southbound devices.
• Status: displays the current status of the equipment node and five working statuses.
  • Init: after the southbound device/northbound application card is added for the first time, it will enter the initialization state.
  • Setup: enter the device/application configuration and enter the configuration state.
  • Ready: after successful configuration, enter the ready state.
  • Running：running device card.
• Working state switch button: open to connect to the device.
  • Open, Neuron establishes connection with equipment/application, and begins to collect data.
  • Close, disconnect, stop collecting data.

• Connection Status: displays the connection status of the device.

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  After adding group and tag, Neuron will connect the device to collect data, and the connection status will show Connected.

• Delay time: the time interval between sending and receiving an instruction.

• Plugin: Used to display the name of the plugin module used by this device.