Ignition connector Tags not updating

Ewon Support M2Web API
#1

Hi,
I’m testing the Ignition Connector with a Flexy 205 and in the Ignition Designer I can see the tags created in the Flexy but with some issues:

  • the tags in the Tag Provider are displayed with the Bad_Stale error
  • when I try to write on one of them I get the a Bad_Failure error
  • the tags update rate is very low, probably more then 2 minutes, one of them is not updating at all
    I saw that the historical logging requires Data MailBox but I’m just trying to read and write on the tags, do I still need it? I’m using the last connector version (1.1.12), the Flexy has the the firmware 14.2.
    Thanks for your help
#2

Hello @danieleIMode,

The default setup is to use the datamailbox but you can set it up for realtime data. This will poll the data from the ewon directly via the m2web API. To use this option make sure you check Read all values in realtime in the advanced section.

The errors you mentioned point towards the connection to the ewon being the issue. I would double check and make sure the ewon device info is setup correctly in the connector.

Deryck

#4

Hi @deryck_hms , I checked under the Ewon Connector on the Ignition Gateway and you were right, “Read all values in realtime” wasn’t selected. So i checked it and restarted the gateway but the problems still persist. I tried to uninstall the connector and install it again but it didin’t improve the situation.

#5

Did you verify the ewon hardware user name and password?

#6

Yes

#7

I’ve imported the project Ewon Ignition Demo found here https://github.com/hms-networks/FlexyIgnitionDemo and in the projerct designer i see all the tags imported have the error Bad_Stale and if I try to launch the project I can’t see any tag and the error ‘Error Writing to Tag … “Tag provider ‘Ewon’ not found”)’ constantly pops up.

#8

Hi Pegu,

Reviewing how the connector works, you were correct in your first post, the the datamailbox and historic logging still needs to be setup. The mailbox is used by the connector to gathers the tag info.

Regarding the demo I checked with Alex and he suspects the demo application might not be setup completely on the eWON itself and ignition doesn’t have any data from the Flexy yet.

Deryck

#9

Hi, I set up the datamailbox and but I still had problems seeing the tags on Ignition. I talked to my Ewon seller and they told that the Connector doesn’t work with multiple ewon, so I decided to use the mqtt functions in the basic script. Thanks for your help

#10

Hello @danieleIMode,

Glad to hear you found a solution with mqtt. Let us know if you have any questions in that regard.

The ignition connector supports multiple ewons. When using historical data it only need to make a connection to the data mailbox and will pull all ewons, tags and log data. You are limited to one ewon username and password, requiring all the ewons to use the same username and password for realtime data and writing. This is due to using m2web which makes a direct connection to the ewon and the connector only allowing for one username and password.

Deryck

#11

@danieleIMode , can you confirm that you got the eWon Flexy to successfully send data to Ignition via MQTT? I saw elsewhere that it is not possible due to ignition using sparkplug. We would like a more efficient/lightweight method of getting data to Ignition aside from the M2Web API, and MQTT would do that for us.

Thanks!

#12

Hi @chawkey, yes we set up the system without Ignition Connector and Datamailbox
We just have a BASIC script on the ewon that sends data and parse the receiving one usig the MQTT functions described in BASIC manual while on the Server side we have installed Mosquitto and Ignition with the MQTT modules.
To get the tags in Ignition you simply see them in the Tag Browser under the MQTT Engine provider and to send data to the ewon you create memory tags that have a script on them (that triggers every time the tag changes) that uses the system.cirruslink.engine.publish() function provided by the MQTT module.
I hope this rough explanation can help you.
Best regards

#13

Hey @danieleIMode , thank you very much for taking the time to respond, I know this post was over 6 months ago so I appreciate it. Was Mosquitto necessary as the broker for the ewon, and then a client to ignition? Thanks again!

#14

Yes, mosquitto is the broker, it receives the data from the ewon and sends the tags to the ewon.
On Ignition you simply use the module to set it as a tag provider and on the ewon you use the MQTT function and its parameter to connect to it and get the data (topics) you want.
BR

#15

@danieleIMode , ah okay that is what I thought. I am able to get the eWon to publish to my mosquitto broker. But not sure what you mean by using the module to set it as a tag provider. Do you mean the cirrus link modules? Do I now need to make mosquitto a client to the ignition cirrus link module?

#17

Nevermind.
I see that the only cirrus link module needed to read messages is the Engine module. You just set it up to point to the Mosquitto broker as opposed to the default included (distributor module) broker.

Thanks again for your help!

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