Add an OPC UA Server Connection with UA Expert Client

7 min

You can connect a new client to the OPC UA server.

In the following use case, the Simulator is used as the selected device and UAExpert on Windows 10 is used as the client.

To add an OPC UA Server Connection, you will need to do the following:

To jump to a specific section, refer to the Table of Contents on the right side and click the corresponding step.

Before You Begin

Before completing the steps below, make sure you do the following:

Add nodes to the OPC UA Hierarchy. See Add a Node or Import Nodes for more information.
Start the OPC UA Server. See Manage the OPC UA Server for more information.
Run your server on port 4840. See Manage the OPC UA Server for more information.

To add the Simulator device:

Navigate to DeviceHub. The Devices pane appears.
Select the Add box. The Connect Device dialog box appears.
Click the Connect Device drop-down list, and select Simulator from the list.
Click the Driver Name drop-down list, and select Simulator from the list.
The Connect Device form drops down beneath your selections.
Enter PLC1 in the Name field.
(Optional) Enter a short description of the device in the Description field.
Click Add Device.

Note: You should add multiple tags to the Simulator (for example, plc1_tag1, plc1_tag2, plc1_tag3, plc1_tag4).

To add a Tag for the Simulator device:

Navigate to DeviceHub > Tags.
From the Tags pane, click Add Tag, and then select Add One.
Click the Select a Device field, and then select simulator from the drop-down list.
From the Add Tag form , enter the following details:
- Value Type: Select int.
- Name: Select int-integer.
- Tag Name: Enter plc1_tag1.
- Polling Interval: Enter 1.
- Address: Enter 0.
- Min Value: Enter 1.
- Max Value: Enter 100.
- Description (Optional) Enter a description for the tag.
Click Add Tag.

You can add nodes to the OPC UA Hierarchy in the following ways:

To connect a client with UAExpert:

Download UAExpert from Unified Automation.
Open UAExpert. Click the Add Server button at the top.
From Custom Discovery, double click to add a server.
From the Enter URL dialog box, enter the Belden Horizon Data Operations IP address with the ocp:tcp:// protocol on port 4840. For example: ocp.tcp://192.168.1.130:4840.
The Enter URL dialog box
Click OK. The Belden Horizon Data Operations OPC UA server should automatically discover your new client.
Once connected successfully, verify that you can see the Root > Belden Horizon Data Operations > PLC1 > tags hierarchy in the Address Space panel.
Address Space panel
Select a Tag to view the the Tag's current value.