Copying Excel spreadsheet

Hi,

I have a workbook used to show the status of our production line. I use RSLINX to communicate with our PLC and collect the data. The same workbook is used to collect the data of our production rates.

I'm wondering if it's possible to get access to our production rate if my excel file is on a seperate computer on the network. the others computers dont have RSLINX installed. I can run another excel file if it's necessery.

roughly, I want to extract the data from a spreadsheet located on another computer.

Thanks

Martin..

It should be pretty straight forward. Excel is getting the data through a DDE link to RSLinx. DDE links will work from other computers just as easily. At most, you'll have to make sure the link is fully qualified and looking at the correct node.
Its been too long since I've done DDE for me to be able to write out a full link for you. You might also have to turn on DDEshare to make it work between computers. Again, the memory is fuzzy, but hopefully that'll be enough for you to do some meaningful googling.


-jeff

MGuenette said:

Hi,

I have a workbook used to show the status of our production line. I use RSLINX to communicate with our PLC and collect the data. The same workbook is used to collect the data of our production rates.

I'm wondering if it's possible to get access to our production rate if my excel file is on a seperate computer on the network. the others computers dont have RSLINX installed. I can run another excel file if it's necessery.

roughly, I want to extract the data from a spreadsheet located on another computer.

Thanks

Martin..

Click to expand...

Across a network I believe you need to use NETDDE,

here is a file from the past on how to do it:

If I understand this correctly, you just want to pull data from the existing spreadsheet that is communicating via RSLinx into another spreadsheet elsewhere. If both are on the network, you can link the workbooks, or ODBC is also an option.

There are a couple of snags with Netdde. Windows XP by default now does not start two services that are related to Netdde, they need to be configured to start up automatically.

These are in control panel - administrative tools - component services - services.

Some firewalls don't like NetDDE as well. I suggest shutting of the firewalls while you are trying to get it to work.

Also, I have been told that Bill has killed NetDDE altogether in Vista although I haven't confirmed that for myself.

good luck.

unsunghippie said:

If I understand this correctly, you just want to pull data from the existing spreadsheet that is communicating via RSLinx into another spreadsheet elsewhere. If both are on the network, you can link the workbooks, or ODBC is also an option.

Click to expand...

Yes, I just want to link the workbooks. I'Mll take a look on that with my good friend Google

Thanks
Martin.

Another question....could it be possible to do that even if the workbooks are not on the same network?

Thanks
Martin.

This is a little more tricky. If the networks are interconnected such that data can be passed back and forth by means of some gateway, yes.
If the two computers are on the same domain, you can resolve locations by computer name.
If not, you will have to resolve by IP address. So the computer with RSLinx would have to be a static IP or need a DHCP reservation on the server. If you are communicating RSLinx over ethernet you probably already have this.

I did this once by setting up a macro to automatically save the workbook to a shared drive on the plant server every minute. This was done from my PC with RSLinx installed and connected to the equipment PLCs.

Then anyone connected to the plant LAN could open a read only copy of the file. It was quite simple with the only drawback being that they had to reload the workbook to get fresh data...it did not keep their open copies updated.

I added a cell to prominently display the time and date the file was last updated to help eliminate confusion, and it all worked out pretty well.

Excel Data

I use a macro to save the excel file to a Network drive and save it as a web page. Anyone on the network with IE can see the production numbers. This looks better than a spreadsheet and not everyone has Excel on their machines.

Excel Workbooks and RSLinx

Howdy:
Pardon me if what I provide here is simplistic or is not exactly on target for what you are asking. Not knowing just exactly your situation, I can give you an example of how we use Excel to log or view data from PLCs and processes.

RSLinx is the communications software and link between Windows XP and PLC, etc. You can pull data from any DDE supported controller across networks as long as your networks are configured correctly and you provide the correct path and node. Inside Excel you simply create an expression in whatever cell you wish and in the expression you set the path, node, and I/O address from which you want the data placed. E.g:

=RSLINX|{node or PLC name here}!'{address here}')

example: =RSLINX|BOTTLING!'N:87/23'

You can perform calculations on the data like you would inside any expression as well.

In RSLinx you may set up a DDE Topic that will correctly set the path to the correct node. I hope this helps. Consequently, you can likewise push (poke) data to a PLC/SLC using Excel and VB6. It is a bit more entailing, but opening a DDE channel through RSLinx, to the node and address works very well. Normally, I would not use Excel to input data on crucial controller nodes because there are few if any security/integrity controls in this method.
Good luck.