topic Re: Is there a way to convert decimal data coming from a Siemens PLC to ASCII in Kepware/Thingworx in Kepware

Is there a way to convert decimal data coming from a Siemens PLC to ASCII in Kepware/Thingworx

S_Noe — Mon, 08 Jan 2024 13:39:07 GMT

Hello, I am pretty new to Kepware and was hoping for some guidance. Using advanced tags or Thingworx, is there a way to convert decimal data coming from a Siemens PLC to ASCII and feed it into Thingworx? The result I need to get should read like +99.9

I was able to find a chart that shows decimal to ASCII, but I am not sure how I can make that conversion using Kepware/Thingworx.

Using the chart I have, I can see that a byte sending a 43 from the PLC should be a '+' and a 26 should be a '.' I am just not sure how to get those numbers to translate to those characters for the Thing I have created in Composer. Nothing obvious is jumping out to me using advanced tags. But I am very new to this software, so maybe the solution is very obvious? Maybe I would have to create something in Thingworx using coding? I'm not sure if it's possible or what approach to use. Thank you for your patience with me!

Re: Is there a way to convert decimal data coming from a Siemens PLC to ASCII in Kepware/Thingworx

aservetas — Tue, 16 Jan 2024 19:18:27 GMT

Within the Kepware project, you can use an Advanced Tag > Derived Tag with an output data type as a STRING, and then in the expression reference the numerical source tag.

This MIGHT work for what you need, however it is not a direct byte for byte conversion to ASCII.

Andy Servetas
Principal Technical Support Engineer | Kepware Technologies

Re: Is there a way to convert decimal data coming from a Siemens PLC to ASCII in Kepware/Thingworx

S_Noe — Fri, 08 Mar 2024 19:08:14 GMT

Hello,

I was able to get this to work by creating a service on a Thing in Thingworx and then putting the following code. I have changed some of my tags and inputs slightly to make them more generic, but I hope it will still translate

var params = {
infoTableName: "asciiResults" /* STRING */
};

// result: INFOTABLE
var result = Resources["InfoTableFunctions"].CreateInfoTable(params);

//Add a new field to the InfoTable:

result.AddField({name: "ADDYOUROWN", baseType: "STRING"});
result.AddField({name: "ASCIICharacterTgmFromPLC_0000", baseType: "STRING"});

// Input decimal value from PLC

var TgmFromPLC_0000FromPLC = me.TgmFromPLC_0000; // Replace this with your actual decimal value

// Convert decimal to ASCII character
var TgmFromPLC_0000asciiCharacter = String.fromCharCode(TgmFromPLC_0000FromPLC);

// Print or use the ASCII character as needed
logger.info("ASCIICharacterTgmFromPLC_0000: " + TgmFromPLC_0000asciiCharacter);

// Now 'asciiCharacter' contains the ASCII character corresponding to the decimal value from the PLC

// add data row
result.AddRow({ADDYOUROWN : me.ADDYOUROWN,
ASCIICharacterTgmFromPLC_0000 : TgmFromPLC_0000asciiCharacter,
});