Data from S7-300 to MS Excel

I am looking to take real time data from two S7-300 PLC's (CPU315 & CPU313) and display this data in Excel. What is the best way to connect these PLC's to the serial port on my PC
Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
Cheers

Hi there,

I would use OPC. Siemens has an OPC server, that can access the data to/from the PLC. Install an OPCdatahub that reads/writes data to/from the OPC server and forwards the data to Excel.
Get the OPCdatahub at: www.opcdatahub.com

Patrick L (HMS support)

Lowsky

Also have a look at the OPC drivers from kepware
www.kepware.com/

But you have to consider the communications/Online path to the PLC in order to read/write data.

M.W (www.ac-sys.co.uk)

If this is a small budget job, then consider to use this adapter from Deltalogic:
http://www.deltalogic.de/content/view/48/72/lang,en/
It is for MPI at 187.5k only, but this is enough for the CPUs you mention.

As for datalogging, there is this lowcost software from Deltalogic:
http://www.deltalogic.de/content/view/20/37/lang,en/
It logs to a CSV file which can be easily read into Excel.

If this is for a permanent installation, then get a CP card for the PC. CP5611 (PCI), CP5621 (PCI express) or CP5711 (USB). These will only work with Simatic Net as the OPC Server though.

If are trying to get real-time data into Excel. I would use Matrikon Analytics Excel Reporter. http://www.matrikonanalytics.com. You can connect to any OPC server for the S7-300.

The 'Current Values' function lets you read the values directly into cells straight off the tags, and even create reports using real-time only tags.

Mustafa Al-Mosawi
Matrikon Analytics