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QuickServer is a high performance, fully configurable, cost-effective Building and Industrial Automation gateway for integrators to easily interface devices to networks in commercial buildings and industrial plants.
System integrators worldwide have benefitted from the value of the powerful line of interoperability gateways offered by FieldServer. Now, QuickServer adds to that value by running the same robust FieldServer protocol conversion software on a highly cost-effective platform backed by the experience, engineering expertise and proven technical support that integrators have come to expect from FieldServer.
QuickServer (Serial-Ethernet) is available in two series:
The FS-QS-1X10 Series is preloaded with two BAS drivers (two RS485 serial ports and one Ethernet port) Drivers from a list of over 150 protocols. There is a basic QuickServer that can handle up to 250 points and an enhanced QuickServer that can handle 500 points.
The FS-QS-1220 Series is preloaded with two BAS drivers (one RS485 serial port, one RS232 serial port, and one Ethernet port) Drivers from a list of over 150 protocols. Each QuickServer can handle up to 500 points.
Each QuickServer includes browser-based tools to make it easy to set-up QuickServer and perform diagnostics including determination of status, network settings, node information, map descriptors and more. The USB flash drive also includes the Discovery utility to determine what FieldServers are on a network.
The QuickServer is a high performance, fully configurable, cost effective Building and Industrial Automation gateway for integrators to easily interface devices to networks in commercial buildings and industrial plants.
System integrators world-wide have benefitted from the value of the powerful line of interoperability gateways offered by FieldServer. Now, QuickServer adds to that value by running the same robust FieldServer protocol conversion software on a highly cost effective platform backed by the experience, engineering expertise and proven technical support that integrators have come to expect from FieldServer.
QuickServer (Serial-Ethernet) is available in two series:
The QuickServer FS-QS-2X10 series is available at four different point capacities. Each QuickServer is preloaded with two drivers (serial and/or Ethernet) from a customer’s choice of 140 different drivers, E.G. Modbus, BACnet, SNMP, EtherNet/IP and many more.
The FS-QS-2010 with 2 RS485 and 1 ethernet port can support up to 250 points. The FS-QS-2210 can support up to 500 points. The FS-QS-2310 can support up to 3,000 points. The FS-QS-2410 can support up to 5,000 points.
Equivalently the FS-QS-2020 with 1 RS485, 1 RS232 and 1 ethernet port can support up to 250 points. The FS-QS-2220 can support up to 500 points. The FS-QS-2320 can support up to 3,000 points. The FS-QS-2420 can support up to 5,000 points.
Every QuickServer includes browser-based tools to make it easy to set-up QuickServer and perform diagnostics including determination of status, network settings, node information, map descriptors and more. The USB flash drive also includes the Discovery utility to determine what FieldServers are on a network.
The QuickServer is a high performance, fully configurable, cost effective Building and Industrial Automation gateway for integrators to easily interface devices to networks in commercial buildings and industrial plants.
System integrators world-wide have benefitted from the value of the powerful line of interoperability gateways offered by FieldServer. Now, QuickServer adds to that value by running the same robust FieldServer protocol conversion software on a highly cost effective platform backed by the experience, engineering expertise and proven technical support that integrators have come to expect from FieldServer.
The QuickServer FS-QS-3X10-F series is available at four different point capacities. Each QuickServer is preloaded with 140 different drivers, such as Modbus, BACnet, SNMP, EtherNet/IP and many more. See page 3 for the complete list. The FS-QS-3010-F can support up to 250 points. The FS-QS-3110-F can support up to 500 points. The FS-QS-3210-F can support up to 1,000 points. The FS-QS-3310-F can support up to 3,000 points. The FS-QS-3410-F can support up to 5,000 points. The FS-QS-3510-Fire can support up to 10,000 points.
With two Ethernet ports, the QuickServer allows data to move seamlessly across disparate subnets, using a dedicated port for Cloud connectivity. This port isolation allows for enhanced LAN security from the BMS/WAN/Cloud. An embedded OpenVPN Server enables secure remote access to Ethernet devices in the field.
Every QuickServer includes browser-based tools to make it easy to set-up QuickServer and perform diagnostics including determination of status, network settings, node information, map descriptors and more. The USB flash drive also includes the Discovery utility to determine what FieldServers are on a network.
The Modbus RTU driver allows our FieldServer gateways to transfer data to and from devices over either RS-232 or RS-485 using Modbus RTU protocol. The Gateways are capable of being used as port expanders and can emulate either a Server or Client. The FieldServer is capable of supporting devices that use two Modbus Registers to transfer IEEE floating point format.
The information that follows describes how to expand upon the factory defaults provided in theconfiguration files included with the FieldServer.
There are various register mapping models being followed by various vendors.
The key difference between ADU and PDU is for example if Address_Type is ADU and address is 1, thedriver will poll for register 0. If Address_Type is PDU, the driver will poll for address 1.
The OPC UA Driver allows the FieldServer to transfer data to and from devices over Ethernet using the OPC UA protocol. The OPC UA Driver uses TCP, either connecting to an OPC UA server using regular opc.tcp or securely using https. If using https, users can upload their client certificate and private key. The default port is 26543 and is configurable.
The driver was developed for the OPC Unified Architecture protocol specification from the OPC Foundation. The specification can be found by clicking here.
The FieldServer can emulate both a Client and a Server. When configured as a Client, the OPC UA driver will connect to the configured OPC UA Servers and attempt to read the requested data points. This data is stored on the FieldServer to be mapped to other protocols or simply to be viewed. When configured as a Server, the OPC UA driver creates an endpoint that other OPC UA Clients can connect to, and creates the OPC objects and attributes based on the configuration to make data from other protocols available to OPC UA Clients.
Depending on what hardware you require, the specifications will contain different options. For Example, M-bus section is only available on the FS-QS-1x50/FS-QS-1x51 devices where x is A for 16 devices, B for 32 devices and C for 64 devices. See images below for Port Support and product code check.
9-30V DC or 12-24V AC, RS-422 = 15-30V DC or 12-24V AC, M-Bus = 12-24V DC (Slave: 550 mA, Master (1 Slave): 580 mA, Master (64 Slave):980 mA); 240 mA
Web configuration
On-board diagnostics
DIN rail mount included
FS-QS-2XX0
Web configuration
On-board diagnostics
DIN rail mount included
FS-QS-3XX0
If you are reading the documentation for sensor blocks, valves, and other devices, you must keep in mind that some vendors may document their hardware in different ways.
According to the Modbus standard, addresses are simply integers from 0 to 65,535 with the different address ranges being referred to as coils, holding registers, etc. However, some vendors will document their hardware using numerical prefixes which are not actually part of the Modbus address. This originated from some models of PLCs which used the Modbus communications protocol, and which also used numerical prefixes in their internal data table. This is similar to using “I”, “Q”, “V”, etc. as address prefixes in IEC type PLCs.
However, it is important to remember that these numerical prefixes are documentation methods and are not part of what the Modbus protocol itself sends as part of the messages. A difference in documentation methods does not affect the compatibility of the protocol itself.
These prefixes are they mentioned anywhere in the Modbus standard, but the following shows how they are typically used in documentation based on this older convention:
Note that there is no 2xxxx address prefix.
In addition to numerical prefixes, some documentation will refer to protocol addresses (addresses start at 0), while other documentation will refer to data model addresses (addresses start at 1). That is, the first holding register may be 0 or 1 (or 40000 versus 40001 using prefixes). However, this has no bearing on what gets sent over the wire as a Modbus message. For a Modbus protocol message, the lowest address is always “0”, not “1”.
Modbus does not provide a method for transporting large or Floating Point numbers or a mechanism for scaling analog values. A 16 bit word can only contain values in the range 0-65535. Only whole numbers are permitted. To work around this many server device manufacturers use multipliers and document them in their manuals. For example, to report a temperature of 58.5 the device reports a value of 585, and makes a note in the manual that the master should scale by 10. This scaling is achieved by adopting a convention between the client and the server.
What about large numbers > 65535
Modbus does not provide a mechanism but 3 important schemes are widely used.
Long Integers – Two consecutive 16 bit words are interpreted as a 32 bit long integer.
MK10 values – Two consecutive words are used. The 1st reports the number of units and the 2nd reports the number of 10,000’s.
Floating Point Numbers – Two consecutive words are used and a scheme. These schemes are conventions and not all servers or clients support them.
The protocol does not identify these big numbers. Only the vendor docs do.
What we mean by this is – if you look at the byte stream in a Modbus message there is no way of telling whether you are looking at two consecutive 16 bit words, or two consecutive words that should be interpreted as floating point, long or MK10 formats. Because of this you always have to look to the vendor docs.
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Port Expansion
FieldServer can easily be configured to allows a Modbus RTU client to talk to a ModbusTCP server and vice versa. You do not need to tell the FIeldServer which registers to map from one to the other. You simply configure the FieldServer telling it which port and protocol to use for each node.
In port expansion mode configuration can be moinimal. Tell the gateway which nodes are on which port and set the port settings.
Scaling / Bit Packing
FieldServers can scale data and manipulate values using some binary logic and arithmetic functions. Scaling can be applied to each block of Modbus Data read / served.
Most functions can be configured to occur on a configurable period or on update of the data source.
Supported Data Types
Bit
Byte
16 Bit Integer Signed
16 Bit Integer Unsigned
32 Bit Integer Signed
32 Bit Integer Unsugned
32 Bit Packed Bit
8 Bit Packed Bit
4 byte FLoating Point Numbers
Supported Modbus Functions
01 Read Discrete Output Status (0xxxx)
02 Read Discrete Input Status (1xxxx)
03 Read Output Registers (4xxxx)
04 Read Input Registers (3xxxx)
05 Force Single Coil (0xxxx)
06 Preset Single Register (4xxxx)
15 Force Multiple Coils (0xxxx)
16 Preset Multiple Registers (4xxxx)
RTU:
Common
Binary Protocol.
Active Master-passive Slave
Serial
Supported by FieldServers, QuickServers, CAS gateways
ASCII:
Similar to ModbusRTU but for each byte in an RTU message, there are 2 bytes in an ASCII message. The 2 bytes are the humand readable form of the single hex byte.
Eg RTU byte = 0x03 (Hex). ASCII bytes = ‘0’ and ‘3’ ie 0x30 and 0x33
Active Master-passive Slave
Serial
Supported by FieldServers, QuickServers
Jbus:
Modbus had the limitation of a max of 9999 items of each type. Ie only 9999 holding registers. However the protocol message allows 65k items to be addressed. JBUS allows all 65k items to be read/written. Other than that it is identical to RTU
Active Master-passive Slave
Serial
Supported by FieldServers, QuickServers, CAS gateways
TCP/IP:
Uses TCP/IP connection based Ethernet communications
Encapsulates RTU messages and adds a header.
A single slave can respond to multiple masters
Many slaves ignore the NodeID field in the message.
Supported by FieldServers, QuickServers, CAS gateways
MB Plus:
Proprietary coax networking layer
2 Mbits/sec
Supported by FieldServers, CAS gateways