Converting FieldPoint Objects to OPCFieldPoint in Lookout

Lookout offers several methods for connecting to a FieldPoint device: FieldPoint object, OPCFieldPoint object, and Logos protocol (Ethernet modules only). There is a serious limitation in the FieldPoint object: a missing module in a bank can cause X'ed out values on the Lookout panel, even for existing modules. The same problem applies to a disconnected bank, in case you are using more than one bank. The missing bank can prevent the other banks from updating. In other words, if you are using FieldPoint object, you should always make sure all channels used in Lookout are physically present and available.

In case you cannot enforce this rule, consider conversion of your Lookout process to OPCFieldPoint. The OPCFieldPoint object does not have this limitation. This document describes how to convert the FieldPoint object to an OPCFieldPoint object. The challenge during the conversion is to keep the same data member names. Otherwise, you would have to repair all broken expressions in the process. The idea of the conversion is to create aliases for the OPCFieldPoint channels that match the original FieldPoint object data members. You can create the aliases in Microsoft Excel. Follow these steps to perform the conversion:


1) Open the existing process that is using the FieldPoint object.
2) Select Object>>Edit Data Member Configuration and choose the FieldPoint object.
3) Click the Export button and save the configuration to a file (I recommend using the same file name as the object name; i.e. FieldPoint1.xls).
4) Repeat steps 2 and 3 for all FieldPoint objects.
5) Close the process.

For every exported Excel file:

6) Open it in Excel.
7) Delete all data in the C column, including the PollRate on the last row, but excluding the column header (Member).
8) Delete any scaling data: columns G - Eng min; H - Eng max; I - Raw min; J - Raw max.

Note: Any scaling is done in the OPC server. Make sure you have configured channels in FieldPoint Explorer. The values you see there are the values you’ll get in Lookout.

9) Go back to column C and start entering the Members (here is most of the work):

Example:

Alias	Member
FP_RTD_122__1.Channel_0	'FP Res'.'FP-RTD-122 @1'.'Channel 0'
FP_RTD_122__1.Channel_1	'FP Res'.'FP-RTD-122 @1'.'Channel 1'
...	...

• Add the resource - ‘FP Res’ or ‘FP Res1.’ To identify the right resource, go to FieldPoint Explorer, find the respective module (FP-RTD-122 @1 in this example), and read the resource. The resource name is enclosed in single quotes. Because Excel reads the leading quote on a line as a control character, you must type it twice in row. For example, type ‘’FP Res’. as quote, quote, FP Res, quote, dot.
• The module name is also in quotes (this time you don’t have to double any quote). Change the first two underscores to dashes and the last two to " @" (space, @).
• Enclose the channel in quotes and change the underscore to a space.
• If there is an All channel you can convert it to ‘All’

Tip: To simplify the editing in Excel, you can copy the just-created entry down by dragging the lower right corner of the cell. If you temporarily delete the trailing quote, Excel will auto-increment the channel number. Then you can add the quote back to all entries.

10) Save the file (keep the original Microsoft Excel 2.1 Worksheet format). Click No for the saving dialog.
11) Repeat for all Excel files.

Note: In the edited C column of each Excel file, the resource name should be the same on all rows. So, it might be ‘FP Res’ in the first file and ‘FP Res1’ in the second file, and so on. The resources should not be mixed; otherwise, you may have some incorrect configuration.

12) Reopen Lookout. This is necessary because Lookout holds the COM ports that we need to release for the OPC server.
13) Create a new process.
14) For each FieldPoint object in the original process, create a new OPCFieldPoint object.

• Use the same name as in the original process (FieldPoint1, FieldPoint2, and so on, not OPCFieldPoint1, OPCFieldPoint2,...).
• In the properties, keep Hierarchical Browsing, but change the Update Rate to requested value.
• Click OK and check the hierarchy of the modules in Object Explorer (the hierarchy will be same for all OPCFieldPoint objects):

15) Select Object>>Edit Data Member Configuration for each object.
16) Click Import and select the respective Excel file. If you have saved the file with the same name as the object name in the step 3, you just need to match the selected file with the object to which you are importing. You should get following window, which also reports errors:

In the window above there was an error on line 16 in the spreadsheet
file. My cell C16 only started with one single quote (see note in the step 9).

17) Return to the process and collapse and expand back the process hierarchy in Object Explorer. Check the new data members in the edited OPC FieldPoint object: they should have identical names as in the original process:

• Drag and drop a few of the channels on the panel and see if you have correct values. Make sure the original process is not running, and reopen Lookout if there are any errors.
• Make sure you didn’t swap the exports. Make sure that what used to be a data member of the original object is now a data member of the object with the same name.

18) Repeat for all objects.

19) BACK UP THE ORIGINAL PROCESS
20) Open the original source file (*.lks) in Notepad.
21) Search for "new FieldPoint". You should get results similar to those shown in the picture below.
22) Locate the end of the FieldPoint object section. It ends with a semicolon and is immediately followed by FieldPoint1.PollRate= S:SS;.
23) Delete all lines starting from new FieldPoint line all the way to the PollRate line, as highlighted in the following picture.

[+] Enlarge Image

24) Open the new process file source in Notepad (keep the original one open).
25) Search for "new OPCFieldPoint".
26) Locate the end of the OPCFieldPoint section. It ends with a semicolon; there is no PollRate line.
27) Copy the whole section to the clipboard and paste it in the original source file, where you just deleted the new FieldPoint lines.
28) Repeat for all objects.
29) Save the original source file (*.lks) and load it in Lookout.
30) Save the process file.

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