The release name is IRC5 OPC Server 5.13.
The IRC5 OPC Server is delivered on the RobotWare 5.13 DVD.
Please read the RobotWare Release Notes and documentation for general information on
your robot and networking the controller.

Release Information

The information should be considered as last minutes information and most up-to-date.

For more information please visit RRI Homepage:

http://prodapp2.se.abb.com/rri/

Hardware and SoftWare requirements

The IRC5 OPC Server 5.13 has the following minimum PC hardware requirements:
CPU: Pentium III 800 MHz or equivalent
RAM: 256 MB
The IRC5 OPC Server 5.13 has the following minimum software requirements:
Windows XP Professional SP1

How to Upgrade to IRC5 OPC Server 5.13

• Save your configuration file OPCConfig.xml (typically residing at \Documents and

Settings\All Users\Application Data\ABB Industrial IT\Robotics IT\IRC5 OPC) if you
wish to save previously configured aliases.

•  Uninstall previous installed IRC5 OPC Server.
•  Install the IRC5 OPC Server 5.13.
•  If you saved an old OPCConfig.xml, copy it to the same location where you retrieved

it from earlier.

ABB AB Robotics

Copies to

Title

Release Notes OPC

Server

5.13

Ref

RP5.13 - xxx

Department

DMRO/ST

Date

2010-04-07

Filename

Release Notes OPC Server 5.13.doc

Page

3/8

Dealt with by, telephone

Anders Trillkott, +46 21 344863

Changes in OPC server 5.13 compared to OPC Server 5.12

No New functionality

Changes in OPC server 5.12 compared to OPC Server 5.11

No New functionality

Changes in OPC server 5.11 compared to OPC Server 5.10

New functionality
In OPC Server 5.11 you may restart from within the OPC Server Configuration tool. You will
also be asked after saving a configuration if you want to restart the server.

Registration has been removed in OPC Server 5.11.

Changes in OPC server 5.10 compared to OPC Server 5.09

No New functionality

Changes in OPC server 5.09 compared to OPC Server 5.08

No New functionality

Changes in OPC server 5.08 compared to OPC Server 5.07

New functionality
In OPC Server 5.08 it is possible to adjust the subscription poll rate on the robot controller.
In previous versions is the subscription poll rate fixed to one second. The poll rate can be
adjusted in the OPC Configuration tool by selecting the tab Communication settings. Min
value is 200 milliseconds. A low poll rate might improve the event response time. The poll
rate is an internal poll time in the robot controller that defines the maximum frequency an
event can be sent to the OPC Server.

ABB AB Robotics

Copies to

Title

Release Notes OPC

Server

5.13

Ref

RP5.13 - xxx

Department

DMRO/ST

Date

2010-04-07

Filename

Release Notes OPC Server 5.13.doc

Page

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Dealt with by, telephone

Anders Trillkott, +46 21 344863

Changes in OPC server 5.07 compared to OPC Server 5.06

New functionality
RAPID Array handling
In IRC5 OPC Server 5.06 and earlier releases, RAPID arrays are shown element by
element, i.e. one OPC tag for each array element. A new tag has been added to IRC5 OPC
Server 5.07 namespace that presents the entire RAPID array as one tag. Note that the
element-by-element solution has not been removed in this release.

RAPID can handle arrays up to three dimensions, but the OPC specification only supports
one-dimension arrays. In order to solve this problem, and be able to show two- and three-
dimensional arrays the IRC5 OPC Server 5.07 will show these as VARIANT arrays. For
more information se ABB IRC5 OPC Server help: ABB IRC5 OPC Server – Data Access –
Item Reference – RAPID Persistent Data

Registration
OPC Registering/ Licensing
IRC5 OPC Server 5.07 includes a Register/ Licensing implementation. The license is free of
charge. The IRC5 OPC Server 5.07 will run without a license but a reminder pop-up dialog
will repeat once a week until the product is registered. The license is not time-limited and it
will not have to be renewed when upgrading the OPC Server to 5.xx release. It’s highly
recommended to install the license.

Information about installing the license key se ABB IRC5 OPC Server help: Getting Started
– Getting and Installing a license key for ABB IRC5 OPC Server

ABB AB Robotics

Copies to

Title

Release Notes OPC

Server

5.13

Ref

RP5.13 - xxx

Department

DMRO/ST

Date

2010-04-07

Filename

Release Notes OPC Server 5.13.doc

Page

5/8

Dealt with by, telephone

Anders Trillkott, +46 21 344863

Information/Corrections RobotWare 5.12

OPC Sever needs restart after a warmstart (DSE8662)

Earlier the OPC Server might stop updating some signals after warm start (after network
re-connect).
This problem has now been solved.

Information/Corrections RobotWare 5.12.01

IRC5 OPC Server 5.12.135.0 RC2 (DSE8904)

The text (ALPHA) has been removed from the head line in the OPC Server ReadMe.htm
file.

OPC Server can't instantiate COM classes, cannot be used (DSE8943)

The IRC5 OPC Server 5.12 configuration tool would fail to start on some PCs with the
following message:
"Retrieving the COM class factory for component with CLSID {207BB2FF-ED01-4542-
8444-361A47FCDCBA} failed due to the following error: 800736b1"
The error is caused by the OPC server installer not including the correct version of the
Microsoft C++ runtime, this has now been corrected.

OPC Config reports NetScan exception on first run (DSE9040)

The first time the OPC Server starts after the installation of the OPC Server it might report
a COM Exception. Next and following start-up will work okay without any exceptions
thrown.

Information/Corrections RobotWare 5.12.02

Display OPC server product version (DSE9202)

The IRC5 OPC Server installation now displays the correct product version in the product
name.

Information/Corrections RobotWare 5.13

ABB AB Robotics

Copies to

Title

Release Notes OPC

Server

5.13

Ref

RP5.13 - xxx

Department

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Date

2010-04-07

Filename

Release Notes OPC Server 5.13.doc

Page

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Dealt with by, telephone

Anders Trillkott, +46 21 344863

Corrected “Product Defect Documents” RW 5.12

PDD

OPC Sever needs restart after a warmstart

DSE8662

Corrected “Product Defect Documents” RW 5.12 .01

PDD

IRC5

OPC

Server

5.12.135.0

RC2

DSE8904

OPC Server can't instantiate COM classes, cannot be used

DSE8943

Corrected “Product Defect Documents” RW 5.12 .02

PDD

Display

OPC

server

product

version

DSE9202

Corrected “Product Defect Documents” RW 5.12 .03

PDD

Corrected “Product Defect Documents” RW 5.13

PDD

ABB AB Robotics

Copies to

Title

Release Notes OPC

Server

5.13

Ref

RP5.13 - xxx

Department

DMRO/ST

Date

2010-04-07

Filename

Release Notes OPC Server 5.13.doc

Page

7/8

Dealt with by, telephone

Anders Trillkott, +46 21 344863

FAQ

Why do some of the IRC5 I/O signals show BAD quality when first connected, even
though the OPC client shows that the connection was successful?
When using the IRC5 OPC Server DA to view the I/O signals, only enabled signals will show
GOOD quality. The disabled I/O signals will all have BAD quality. This means that if using a
single-robot IRC5 controller, i.e. a controller that only has one drive module - for example
DRV1, only the signals for DRV1 will have GOOD quality. I/O signals whose names start
with DRV2, DRV3 and DRV4 will all show BAD quality, since they are disabled in that case.

How many OPC clients can be used per IRC5 OPC Server?
The maximum number of OPC clients connected to the IRC5 OPC Server strongly depends
on performance of the PC where OPC Server is running. IRC5 OPC Server uses so-called
report mode for the event-driven OPC tags (including all RAPID variables and I/O signals),
meaning that the value changes (if there are any) will be reported to the OPC clients at the
requested update-rate cycles. The higher PC performance, the faster all OPC clients will be
updated with new values.
Our tests have shown that increasing the number of OPC Clients only marginally increased
the load on the IRC5 OPC Server.

How many IRC5 controllers can one IRC5 OPC Server handle?
In theory, an unlimited number of robot controllers can be handled from the same OPC
Server instance. In reality, however, the maximum number of controllers that one IRC5 OPC
Server can monitor is normally limited by various circumstances. The most important factors
are usually:

• PC

performance

• The number of OPC tags that the OPC client is subscribing to for each IRC5

controller

• The number and the frequency of changes that occur in the subscribed OPC tags
• The network traffic between the PC and the controllers

All of these parameters must be taken into consideration when configuring and dimensioning
the IRC5 OPC Server.
Rules of thumb for dimensioning the IRC5 OPC Server:
- Up to 30 IRC5 controllers connected to a single PC running the IRC5 OPC Server.
- Up to 4000 I/0 signals used as tags for all connected controllers.
- The maximum number of RAPID variables that can be used as tags is 200 PERS variables
per controller.
- A maximum of 300 of the I/O signals or RAPID variables to be changed within 4 seconds.

Please note that these approximations are valid given that no other application communicates
with the same IRC5 controller nor runs on the same PC as the IRC5 OPC Server.

ABB AB Robotics

Copies to

Title

Release Notes OPC

Server

5.13

Ref

RP5.13 - xxx

Department

DMRO/ST

Date

2010-04-07

Filename

Release Notes OPC Server 5.13.doc

Page

8/8

Dealt with by, telephone

Anders Trillkott, +46 21 344863

What is the fastest OPC client update rate supported by the IRC5 OPC Server?
As mentioned earlier, the IRC5 OPC Server uses so-called report mode for the event-driven
OPC tags (including all RAPID variables and I/O signals), meaning that the value changes
(if there are any) will be reported to the OPC clients at the requested update-rate cycles. If
no changes occur, no reporting will be done. This feature allows the OPC clients to set their
update rate as fast as 0 ms, which means that the OPC Server will report the change as
soon as possible. Note that in this case it is the client that becomes the bottleneck for
handling changes and not the OPC Server.
There are some limitations, however, on how fast a value change on the IRC5 controller
results in a value change on the IRC5 OPC Server. This depends on what other higher
priority tasks are executing on the IRC5 controller at the moment, the number and frequency
of value changes, as well as the speed of the local network. Normally, a change will be
received by the IRC5 OPC Server and delivered to the client within 150-300 ms, but this
time cannot be guaranteed by the controller nor the network. Dimensioning for 1000 ms is a
better option where possible.

Which version of OPC Server to use?
The OPC Server is backward compatible with old RobotWare, i.e. the OPC Server 5.12 can
be used with robot controllers using RobotWare 5.11, 5.10, 5.09, 5.08, 5.07 or 5.06.

Document Outline

General