low cost Scada for s7

Hi

Iam looking for a cheap SCADA solution for small s7 applications

i am familiar with wincc but sometimes it is not cost effective



Amr

Hello Amr Hassan;

One relatively cheap but very powerful solution for SCADA on a S7 platform would be Citect. You can download a free demo package (fully functionnal for 15 minutes at a time, including comms) at www.citect.com.
However, what is most costly in S7 SCADA projects is communication hardware and software on the PLC side. Most SCADA packages do not communicate over the (relatively) cheap PC-Adapter; the speed is too low for adequate exchanges. So you need a comm card for MPI or Profibus (CP5611 is the least expensive); for Ethernet comms, you can use a commercial TCP/IP card in the PC, but require a CP343-1/ CP443-1 in the PLC rack and adequate drivers from Siemens (Sofnet-IE) to connect the two.
Hope this helps,
Daniel Chartier

Dear Daniel
thanks for the info
i browsed the site but i did not find the link to download the software
also can you give me a figure of how much this costs

Link to the download page is http://www.citect.com/downloads/products

hello Amr Hassan;

This link should bring you to the correct webpage:
http://www.citect.com/downloads/products

Also have a look at the quick tutorial on the Support tab of the Citect website.

If I remember correctly, I last bought citect 2 years ago at $500 for 150 I/O tags. Maybe someone can give you an idea of how pricing has evolved since then.

Hope this helps,
Daniel Chartier

About "low-cost":

The real cost of the SCADA package you select will rely heavily on the number of applications you plan to implement over a long time.

With Citect the developer software is free, but the runtime license is rather expensive.
If you plan to install only one or two runtime licenses, then Citect is one of the cheapest solutions. And Citect is also great in every other way, so it could be a good choice for you.
But if you plan to install more than a few or maybe many (10+), then Citect is one of the most expensive solutions out there.

A pity really, I liked Citect very much when I had to use it for a project once. But the price is simply way too high when you need 10-15 licenses per year as I do.

I use Protool Pro. This is quite reasonably priced, and I can reuse HMI code with the smaller operator panels.
The functionality is a bit limited (think SCADA "lite").
Protool Pro is in the proces of being substituted by Win CC Flexible. Flexible should be more potent than Protool, and the price is even a bit lower, so I am heading this way.
Please note that Flexible isnt a 100% mature product at the time of this writing.