MgSoftDev.IndustrialController.AllenBradley.LibPlcTagNetCore 1.2.1

MgSoftDev.IndustrialController

One API for talking to industrial PLCs from .NET.

Connect, create a tag, read, write — the code is identical whether the controller on the other end is a Siemens S7, an Allen Bradley ControlLogix, an Omron NJ/NX, an Emerson PAC System, or a simulator running on your laptop. Switching brands is a one-line change in your dependency injection setup; nothing else in your application moves.

Controller plc = factory.New(connection).Throw();
plc.Connect(persist: true);                       // auto-reconnects in the background

Tag<int> counter = plc.CreateTag<int>(parameters).Throw();
counter.Read();                                   // updates counter.Value
counter.Write(42);

Why it exists

Every PLC vendor ships its own driver with its own object model, its own error conventions and its own idea of what a "tag" is. An application written against S7.Net Plus has to be rewritten to talk to libplctag. This library puts a single Controller / Tag<T> abstraction in front of all of them, so the vendor choice stays where it belongs: in configuration.

On top of that it adds what production line software actually needs and raw drivers don't provide:

• Automatic reconnection. Connect(persist: true) starts a background task that watches the link and reconnects on its own.
• Errors as values. Every operation returns Returning instead of throwing, so a dropped PLC is a value you handle, not an exception that takes down a loop.
• Bindable state. Controller and Tag<T> implement INotifyPropertyChanged, so a WPF view can bind straight to tag.Value or plc.IsConnected with no ViewModel plumbing in between.
• Built-in diagnostics. Each controller and tag keeps an event log, and tags keep a history of value changes — enough to build a monitoring screen without instrumenting anything.
• Configuration as data. Connections and tag addresses serialize to JSON, so a plant's PLC map can live in a database and be edited without recompiling.

Install

Always the core, plus one provider package:

dotnet add package MgSoftDev.IndustrialController.Core
dotnet add package MgSoftDev.IndustrialController.Siemens.S7_PlcCore

For Allen Bradley and Omron on .NET 7+, LibPlcTag is the one to pick — it is the only provider with no commercial license attached. See docs/providers/ for the full comparison.

Quick start

No PLC needed — this runs against the simulator:

using MgSoftDev.IndustrialController.Core;
using MgSoftDev.IndustrialController.Simulator;

var factory = new SimulatorControllerFactory();

Controller plc = factory.New(new SimulatorControllerConnection("Sim1", "127.0.0.1", 1588)).Throw();
plc.Connect(persist: true);

Tag<int> tag = plc.CreateTag<int>(new TagParameters("Counter", "Int", null)).Throw();

tag.Write(42);
tag.Read();

Console.WriteLine($"{tag.Parameters.DisplayTagName} = {tag.Value}");

Start SimulatorServerApp first — it hosts the virtual PLC and creates tags on first use. Full walkthrough in Getting started.

Against a real Siemens S7-1500, only the two configuration objects change:

var factory = new S7ControllerFactory();

Controller plc = factory.New(new S7ControllerConnection("Plc1", CpuType.S71500, "192.168.0.10", rack: 0, slot: 1)).Throw();
plc.Connect(persist: true);

Tag<int> tag = plc.CreateTag<int>(
    new S7TagParameters("Counter", "Int", DataType.DataBlock, db: 17, VarType.Int, startByteAdr: 2)).Throw();

Documentation

Requirements

• .NET 7+ or any .NET Standard 2.0 consumer (including .NET Framework 4.6.1+).
• The two INGEAR providers are .NET Framework 4.8 only and need an INGEAR runtime license.
• The Emerson provider needs ASComm IoT installed locally; the assembly is not redistributed on NuGet.

Building from source

dotnet build MgSoftDev.IndustrialController.sln -c Release

Requires Windows: two providers target net4.8 and the simulator server is WPF. The Emerson provider additionally needs ASComm IoT — override its location with -p:ASCommDir="C:\path\to\ASComm" if you installed it somewhere other than the default.

License

Copyright (c) MgSoftDev. All rights reserved.