Connecting USB port to local kepware

[AS_1307]

Hello 

I have a local instance of Kepware (V6.9.572) on my Laptop to which I want to connect a scanner device.

I have a Honeywell scanner which interfaces with my laptop using USB port. I want to connect this USB port to Kepware and obtain the scanned data as a string input. Is this possible to do?

Thanks in advance

[sam_kepware]

Hello, 

Kepware drivers support only Serial and Ethernet interfaces. To use a USB-connected device with Kepware, the device's USB interface would need to support virtual Serial COM port software installed on Kepware's host PC so that a local, virtual Serial port becomes available for Kepware's use. From there, the channel object would target the virtual COM port number created by this virtual COM port software.

I recommend inquiring with Honeywell about the availability of virtual COM port software for your scanner. Please feel free to write to the Kepware Solutions Consultants if you have further questions - presales.support@kepware.com.

Thanks, 

Sam

[AS_1307]

Hi Sam

Thanks for the suggestion. I was able to find a virtual Serial COM port driver for the Honeywell scanner and I installed it. I have a COM4 port now in device manager. I checked through hercules software and the scanned data is reflecting there. So the next thing I tried was to connect to kepware using U-CON driver but in the end I didn't really understand how to get the scanned QR code data to kepware. Could you please help with this? 

Thanks

AS

[sam_kepware]

Hello, I'm very glad you were able to find virtual COM port software. For help with UCON, first, you can watch the following two enablement videos created by our partner (the OEM version of Kepware they sell is called "TOPServer", so these videos will mention TOPServer but you should know this is identical to Kepware):

Part 1: UCON Tutorial Part 1 Overview - YouTube

Part 2: UCON Tutorial Part 2 Simple Transactions - YouTube

If you'd like any further assistance please send an email to presales.support@kepware.com.

Thanks!
Sam

[AS_1307]

Hi Sam

Once again, thanks for the suggestion. I followed the steps in the YouTube videos exactly but I'm not getting any data from the scanner to the tag created in the transaction editor of the UCON driver. I'm not really sure how to achieve this. Are there any further steps that need to be done?

Thanks

AS

[sam_kepware · Accepted solution]

Hello, 

There are a number of paths to take in terms of troubleshooting. You first might test with a tool like Putty (Download PuTTY - a free SSH and telnet client for Windows) connected to your Virtual COM port created by your USB dongle software. Turn Kepware off (Admin tool -> Stop runtime service). Then, initiate data flow from your scanner and see if it shows up in Putty's visual interface. 

If it does, you have either a COM port binding issue - Kepware can't bind to your COM port for some reason, and you should check the Kepware Event log for confirmation of this - or you have a misconfiguration in your UCON transaction editor.

If you'd like any further assistance please send an email to presales.support@kepware.com. After the steps above, we'd want to organize a short remote support session to help further, and I will need you to engage my team and I through the email address provided.. You could also open a presales support ticket on PTC's eSupport portal: eSupport | PTC

Thanks ,
Sam

[PS_11028951]

Hello,

I just want to add here my current learnings. Please note that UCON driver doesnt trigger unless there is a client to the tags. Its very important to note (and supposed to be obvious), but I had hard time understanding this as it is not mentioned in any documentation. So simply provide a client e.g. quick client or even advanced tags to provide a link/usage for the tags generated in ucon space. 
Hope this is useful.