Questions about Factory IO

  1. Can you make the factory larger or customize it in any way?

  2. Is there a way to customize conveyor belt speed or size?

  3. Are there any user defined items that you can create or import if others created them?

  4. How do use UDT tag data from Studio 5000 with Factory IO?

  5. Array tags are not showing up properly is there a way to use arrays and indexes with Factory IO?

  6. Are there any options to create your own items?

  7. Can you adjust sizing of any the premade items? Color the items differently?

  8. The OPC UA is not picking up the tags I need from the PLC I want. How is the driver pulling the data when I do not have an option to specify what PLC it needs to look for? The documentation isn’t specific on how you call your PLC so that the tags are pulled.

  9. This is what I see when I try to use the OPC UA driver, not all the tags are there and even the ones that are there are not indexed properly (i.e. DINT tags exist in my program so Input.0 and so on are NOT showing up)

Hi @naba.al-akashi, welcome to the forum!

1. Can you make the factory larger or customize it in any way?

At the moment it is not possible to make the factory larger. However, you add custom artwork to it.

2. Is there a way to customize conveyor belt speed or size?

Yes, you can set the conveying speed by using an analog value between -10V and 10V. Note that you must configure the conveyor belt as Analog (see more here).
Currently, it’s not possible to change the conveyor belt size. However, you may choose conveyors of three different sizes (2m, 4m, and 6m).

3. Are there any user defined items that you can create or import if others created them?

At the moment, it’s not possible to import or create parts for Factory I/O.

4. How do use UDT tag data from Studio 5000 with Factory IO?

At present, Factory I/O Allen-Bradley driver does not support UDT tags.

5. Array tags are not showing up properly is there a way to use arrays and indexes with Factory IO?

It is possible to use arrays with OPC UA. However, each array element will show up as an OPC UA node. This means that you can only read/write to each element of the array individually.

6. Are there any options to create your own items?

I believe this is the same question as 3, so you get the same answer :wink:

7. Can you adjust sizing of any the premade items? Color the items differently?

At the moment you can not change the size of any parts in Factory I/O. However, you can change the colors of some parts, such as the ones listed here. For that, hover the mouse over the item, right-click and select Configuration.

8. The OPC UA is not picking up the tags I need from the PLC I want. How is the driver pulling the data when I do not have an option to specify what PLC it needs to look for? The documentation isn’t specific on how you call your PLC so that the tags are pulled.

You have to specify the OPC UA Server Endpoint in the OPC Driver Configuration Panel (type or paste it in the OPC Server input field). The OPC UA Server Endpoint must follow the OPC scheme “opc.tcp://servername:port”. Typically, you can find this URL in the settings of your OPC UA Server.

9. This is what I see when I try to use the OPC UA driver, not all the tags are there and even the ones that are there are not indexed properly (i.e. DINT tags exist in my program so Input.0 and so on are NOT showing up)

By default, Factory I/O retrieves only the first 32 nodes found in the OPC UA server (you may increase this value up to 256). Most of these nodes contain information about the OPC UA server and, most likely, not what you are looking for.
To browse only relevant OPC nodes from the OPC UA server you need to use filters in the OPC Driver configuration panel. You can see more about best practices on how to use filters here.

Hello @adriana.silva, thank you for the warm welcome and for getting back to me!

  1. I would like a bit more clarification if you can about the OPC UA drivers. I have read the user manual and there is a single mention of the OPC Server URL that you spoke about, but it was unclear on how to obtain it. For example, if my PLC’s IP address is set at 192.168.1.101 and I am using RSLinx Classic Gateway software how would I find or type out the URL?

  2. Another question I have is tried changing the limit of the driver to 100 and the same problem still occurs. I will see a list of tags but they come back as “bad quality” and are not the tags I am looking for (specifically the indexes within an array or individual integer tags in a DINT tag). I have also tried filtering out the tag names, but to no avail.

  3. Can you export the driver configurations and import them later on? Or when you save the scene does it save your driver configurations automatically with it?

  4. When I choose what boxes to emit in the emitter what is the unit of time being utilized? I am assuming it is in seconds, is that correct?

  5. Can you have multiple items/sensors/actuators looking at the same tag from a PLC?

Hi @naba.al-akashi !

After taking a second look at the first post I have decided to improve some of my answers. I think some points discussed here may prove useful for other users as well. You should consider going through it again.

You mentioned RSLinx Classic Gateway. Are you using OPC DA? From the original post, I had the idea you were using OPC UA instead. Can you clarify this?

I am using both FactoryTalk View Browser and RSLinx Classic Gateway. Both programs have the same PLC that is listed. This is what I see in Factory IO


I honestly can’t tell if in the programs I am using OPC UA vs OPC DA