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- [Instructor] If you recall
our project development workflow,
now that we have a good project to work with,
we need to add some devices to communicate with.
However to do that, we need to tell the software
how the devices store their data,
what data we want to bring into the system,
and what we want to do with that data.
For that we have a tool called the Profile Editor,
located in the Topology tab to the left,
and under I/O Devices at the top.
The Profile Editor has its own workflow
consisting of three major steps.
First, we'll create a device type.
Inside the device type,
we will select what data points
that exist onboard the device called variable tags
and assign their location on the device.
For example, if I have an electrical meter
communicating with Modbus protocol,
it will have a register list that tells me
what registers hold the currents, voltages and so forth,
as well as how those values are formatted.
I'll put all this information into the device type.
Just to reiterate, the device type
describes what data is physically onboard the device.
Once we've created a device type, the next step
is to define what we want to do with that data.
This is called the profile.
First we'll take some or all of the variable tags
in the device type and assign them to our new profile.
We can then decide to create alarms
and trends in the software based on these variable tags.
It's possible to have several profiles
based on the same device type.
A meter configured in a four-wire or Wye format
will use more voltage tags than a three-wire meter.
Also, different sites
may have different alarming requirements
or even different alarms
depending upon the voltage level of the equipment.
The last step is to define a project in Profile Editor
and export the profiles.
In most cases this means choosing your project,
selecting your desired profiles and then exporting.
Once this is done,
you will be able to add devices to your project database
using those profiles.
You also have the option to export your project to a file
that can be imported into other instances
of the Profile Editor.
This allows you to develop profiles on one machine,
then use them on other machines.
Before we dive into building our own device types,
I want to clarify a couple of points.
First, the Profile Editor only supports
certain communication protocols.
Specifically Modbus, ION,
IEC 61850,
IEC 60870-5-104,
and DNP.
We'll discuss how to deal with other protocols later.
But for now, just know that the Profile Editor
is not your tool for anything else.
It is possible that you don't actually need
Profile Editor for your project.
The software comes with a number of profiles
installed by default,
primarily for Schneider Electric electrical meters.
It's also possible that someone else
has developed profiles for you
either because you're expanding
an already established project
or someone is sending you an export
from their own Profile Editor.
I still recommend following along with the videos,
but know that you may not be using this tool
on every single project.
With that introduction out of the way,
let's take the next few videos
to walk through the process of creating a device type,
creating a device profile based on that type,
and finally exporting the profile to our project
to be later added to the database.
Until the next video.
Thank you.