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[INFO] Support for MTConnect standard confirmed
#1
Edit August 2020:
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The https://github.com/mtconnect/mtconnect-agent MT Connect agent referenced below has been deprecated
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MTConnect is a standard for exchanging information and data of factory automation equipment like machines, sensors, actuators across Ethernet using a standardizes device data format which is XML.

Today I wanted to proof if MTConnect can be supported by netPI too. MTConnect web site provides a source code containing an agent (master) to scan for adapters (slaves) and if found any to provide their informations on a simple HTML page.

Here is what I did.

  1. I installed the Raspbian Container https://hub.docker.com/r/hilschernetpi/netpi-raspbian/ on my netPI, but activated the container to run in host network mode
  2. I opened a terminal console with putty to access Linux command line
  3. I installed node.js including npm (cause it comes not preinstalled) command using the following commands
    sudo apt-get update
    sudo curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_8.x | sudo -E bash -
    sudo apt-get install -y node

  4. I installed git command using sudo apt-get install git
  5. I cloned the agent from github using git clone https://github.com/mtconnect/mtconnect-agent command
  6. I was continuing to follow the README provided in this repo and called npm install in the created mtconnect-agent folder
  7. Then I called sudo npm start and the agent immediately started its work and was scanning for adapter periodically
  8. As the README is telling I opened another terminal console to start simulating an adapter on the same netPI (can be any second hardware too)
  9. In this console I had to install the fs-ext file system package first with sudo npm install -g --unsafe-perm fs-ext needed to run the simulator
  10. Then I started the adapter simulation using sudo npm run simulator2 command. I was able to follow a logging output on the screen
  11. I saw the agent logging quite more data since it found the adapter present in the current network
  12. He wsa preparing me an HTML site of the found adapter data in the background I am able to call under the URL http://<netPi's IP address>:7000/probe

This simple setup cost me 10 minutes of work to prove that netPI can be either MTConnect agent or adaptor or even both.

Of couse my examination proves just MTConnect connectivity on the lowest communication level only and for sure there is much more work to spent on realizing a user application on top of the agent or adapter, but it shows to me that MTConnect is indeed as open and interoperable as they proclaim on their web site.

Good luck for any MTConnect project you want to realize with netPI

Thx
Armin
You never fail until you stop trying.“, Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

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Messages In This Thread
[INFO] Support for MTConnect standard confirmed - by Armin@netPI - October-18th-2018, 02:02 PM

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