Creating a communications test project

To verify that CitectSCADA can bring your I/O Devices online, it is recommended you create a test project.

The Test Project needs to be as simple as possible. For example, if your system will eventually be communicating through a COM port, a KTX card, an SA85 card, and via TCP/IP do not try and make this work on your first try. Make the Test Project with 1 element at a time.

First add and test the COM port. When that works, make a new test project for the KTX card, then make a new test project for the SA85 card, and finally one for the TCP/IP. Once you are happy that each individual element works properly, start to add them together.

While checking that you have only the absolute minimum information in the project to enable communications, verify that there are no duplicated records.

A good way to do this is to open a form and then check the Record Number shown on the bottom left of the form. Check that it is on Record 1, and then click the button in the scroll bar on the right hand side of the form and drag it down. When you get to the bottom of the scroll bar, let the button go. If it pops back up to the top of the form and the record numbers stays at 1 then you have only 1 record.

It is necessary to drag the scroll bar as the forms are indexed on the I/O Server name. Quite often there will be 'orphaned' records from a previous I/O Server name still in the database files. If you find any extra records, delete them and then packPacking a database re-indexes database records and deletes records marked for deletion. If you edit your databases externally to , you should pack the database afterwards. the project. Duplicate or orphaned records in the communications database can negatively impact communications performance.

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