Need Low cost recommendations for AB Scada:

My customer wants to put Ethernet cards in 7 PLC’s around the plant. He wants to collect and save the production data for these machines. All PLC are Micrologix 1200.



Can you please give me suggestions as to which program I need to purchase to do this?

1761-ENI module will do this this module converts serial DF1 to Ethernet/IP

Then you need rsview 32 or rsview SE as scada system & rs bizware plant matrix & rssql for data collection

rPraveenkum has the Rockwell HMI/SCADA packages nailed. You can use pretty much any vendor's SCADA package with AB PLCs - don't get into the mindset that you have to use a hardware vendor's software package.

I would recommend checking out FactorySQL and FactoryPMI from Inductive Automation. The price is extrememly competative for a distributed system. Sign up for a free web demo and we'll show you both packages and answer any questions.

RSView 32 and RSView SE are the two main Rockwell SCADA packages. RSView 32 is the older (~windows 95) product replaced by RSView SE but it is still available and supported. RSView 32 is easier to come to grips with, but RSView SE has better graphics and has lots of useful configuration options for end users in setting up trends and alarm display options, and the Visual Basic scripting environment is much better integrated. Overall I would prefer RSView SE for new projects over RSView 32. Make sure you research the Rockwell knowledgebase for bug fixes before you start however - 3.0, 3.1 and 3.2 were all pretty buggy and I spent many unhappy days on site fixing problems with client communications and other problems.

Depending on your data storage requirements you may or may need one of the other RS software data collection products like RSSQL (as mentioned above by rPraveenkum). RSView SE has a very useful VB environment built in, and I have successfully used it to log production data directly to an Access database.

However, depending on your application you may find other SCADA suppliers provide better value for money - Citect and Wonderware both provide very capable packages at a good price. One thing to note is that RSView SE charges based on the number of screens you use rather than the number of tags you require.

Low cost and Allen-Bradley don't mix, it's like oil and water.

I think by AB SCADA, he meant "collect(ing) and save(ing) the production data for these machines (7 PLCs)."

Going entirely with AB is a decision based on quality, brand name, and support. Don't think that other vendor's products won't work smoothly with AB products - that's like AT&T telling you to buy their phone for compatibility (been done before). Like nswu1 said, it's pretty hard to do this at a low cost (with Rockwell software).

You might be able to get away with an RSView (classic) single terminal that's logging data from the 7 PLCs (via a single copy of RSLinx OEM). That sytem won't expand to multiple computers or much in the way of functionality as SE can, but it's a heck of a lot cheaper than going with SE, not to mention RSSQL. The bottom line is if this package can satisfy your project's needs.

nswu1 said:

Low cost and Allen-Bradley don't mix, it's like oil and water.

Click to expand...

To put a spanner into what has been mentioned so far, the poster mentioned machines, so perhaps the data is only digital, if so, it could be possible that he could use OPC or DDE servers.

If they are only after production data, then I guess it is possible that the data is stored in the PLC, so all the poster would need to do, is extract that information.

In plc you can store less information since only ML1200 is used definitely you need database management software with reporting software

Piscis
Your original post does not provide much of an indication of your exact requirements or programming abilities. If you only need to collect and save production data and you have access to tools such as VB then you only really need something like an OPC/DDE server to get at the PLC data. It is not at all difficult to produce a VB application to collect data and store it in an ODBC or ADO compatible database. If this meets your needs you may not need to spend a lot of Money on SCADA software. If you do not have the experience/confidence to take this on yourself I would speak to a local integrator who could advise you as to the best course of action.
Andybr

so how bad is it?

By the way, what's the ballpark cost of RSView SE Server (say, 250 graphics) and RSView Client? and Bizware Hist Server? I've never bought RSView before.

thanks

I decided to simplify things and did this:

• Ethernet Data acquisition responsibility will fall completely on DataWorx
• Data presentation, Trends, Graphs, Alarms, Email Sensing and Cell Phone Text messaging will fall completely on Visual Basic 2005

(Customer was wrong, all PLC were from AD, not AB)




See photo here:



http://www.telemetrika.com/HMIpage3.htmlhttp://www.telemetrika.com/HMIpage3.html

I'm glad you found a solution! I would be wary of the amount of programming required (and maintenance) writing all of what you mentioned in VB - utilize 3rd party VB code to make it happen. Of course, if the customer is willing to flip the bill for this and that's what they want, more power to you! Existing HMI/SCADA packages will more than likely do what you want initially higher cost (than essentially free), but with a much lower setup cost and total cost of ownership.

piscis said:

I decided to simplify things and did this:

• Ethernet Data acquisition responsibility will fall completely on DataWorx
• Data presentation, Trends, Graphs, Alarms, Email Sensing and Cell Phone Text messaging will fall completely on Visual Basic 2005

(Customer was wrong, all PLC were from AD, not AB)




See photo here:



http://www.telemetrika.com/HMIpage3.html

Click to expand...