What it is and where it sits
The Mitsubishi FX5-OPC is a connectivity expansion module for the MELSEC iQ-F PLC family, ordered under part # FX5-OPC, and it lives in the PLC Expansion Modules category as a sidecar to the iQ-F base CPU. Its job in the panel is to bridge the iQ-F controller to OPC-capable clients — the slot you'd populate when a SCADA host needs standardised tag access without a per-protocol hand-roll.
Lifecycle and sourcing posture
Lifecycle stage is current per the seed ledger, so the procurement posture is quote-to-order against an RFQ; no EOL window is recorded and no successor order code is on file.
Where it is used
Connectivity modules of this class show up in iQ-F cells where a supervisory layer — typically an OPC-DA or OPC-UA client on a plant server — needs live tag read/write against the controller without a per-protocol gateway PC. It expands the iQ-F backplane rather than adding I/O, so it sits alongside digital and analog slices, not in their slots — the integrator's panel layout is unchanged, only the slot count grows.