Entering The System - Siemens SIMATIC RF310M Function Manual

RFID Reader Interface User's Guide
2.3 Extending the Reach
2.3.2

Entering the system

How do we achieve to be part of a larger system with an RF610M?
The good news is that starting with RF-MANAGER 2008 the RF610M can be configured
within a project as just another reader. All you have to do is, setting the reader type to
'RF610M' and setting the IP address accordingly so that the RF610M can be reached via
Ethernet. Of course you have to set up a WLAN connection to the device first.
Afterwards, you start the RFID reader using the already familiar interface member
StartReader but specifying the RF-MANAGER mode as shown in the code snippet below.
private void menuReaderStart_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
try
{
}
catch (RfReaderApiException rfidException)
{
}
}
As a result, the RFID reader interface starts the underlying reader service in such a way that
it waits for a connection with an RF-MANAGER runtime. As long as no connection to an RF-
MANAGER runtime has happened, you will not be able to perform any operations on the
interface successfully apart from stopping, getting the version or adding an event handler.
Any try to call an API function while the connection to the RF-MANAGER is still pending will
result in an RfReaderApiInvalidModeException exception.
Hold on a second! You won't tell me that after starting a reader the only thing that happens is
that the interface is blocked, will you? That's crazy.
Well, actually it is not. And here is why: When working in RF-MANAGER integrated mode
the reader service needs initialization data configured with RF-MANAGER in order to know
for example if it has to scan only for RFID data or for barcodes and how the keys on the
device trigger reading and whether the device is used for monitoring or for control. As long
as this information is not available, the behavior of the RFID reader interface would be
somehow random. To prevent clients from being confused by such indiscriminate behavior,
the best way is to allow operation only, if system configuration has been finished.
24
// We want to create and start an instance of the RFID
// reader interface for an RF610M device that interacts with
// an RF-MANAGER runtime.
RfReaderInitData initData = new(RfReaderInitData();
initData.Type = „RF610M";
initData.Mode =
// With RfReaderApi.Current we address the current
// RFID reader interface instance
// or initiate the creation of a new instance.
// StartReader connects to an existing reader service
// or creates a new reader service.
RfReaderApi.Current.StartReader(initData);
// Something went wrong while starting the reader.
// More information is available by inspecting the
// RfReaderApiException's members ResultCode, Error,
// Cause and Description.
...
RfReaderInitData.ReaderMode.RfMananger;
Function Manual, 02/2009, J31069-D0198-U001-A1-0076
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