DL06 Data logging

Good morning and Happy New Year to everyone!

I have been recently working on a project involving a PLC in which i have no experience with. However, i feel i've made some good advancement until now by simply reading posts, books, help files, etc. Now, I find myself needing some helpful experience. Obviously, this won't be the last time. I am certain that the first question that will pop into mind would be "why didn't you post this before you aquired the hardware?" and trust me, i've been asking myself that quite a bit lately. Here we go:

Objective: We have product moving through a plant at a rate of 50/day. This product moves through a PLC controlled machine designed to press fit a part on the end. The press will have a position and pressure transducer feeding back to the PLC. I need to have a record (logged data) of the position and pressure for each product. The idea is that i will take this data and produce a report with a graph, product id, and specific customer information. The trick- each piece has specific customer data that i would like to log in the same file. Up to this point every piece is the same.

Equipment: DL06 with C-More 8" touch screen with USB and ethernet ports. No ethernet module in the PLC.

Because i only have about 100 customers, i have quickly set up the customer information in a recipe. This allows the operator to load this info before starting the cycle. Looks good on the screen, but really useless. NOt that i have succeeded yet, i understand that the C-More will save the logged data to a USB or send it over FTP or email. I really like the idea of the FTP, but from what i've read so far, the C-More is limited to only saving the chart data. Is this correct? Is there anyway to get the C-More to save other user input data? Eventually, i would like to be able to either read or produce a bar code at this point to help save operator input time. Is this C-More capable of such? Oh, one more thing... some of the user input data is tagged for the PLC. Each customer requires a different spec for the position. Some may want 31 while others want 26 or 35 and so on. I have included this info in the recipe with the customers info.

Thank you in advance. Any help would be most appreciated.

Have a Happy New Year and may God Bless You.

There are some questions that will need to be answered before any help can be given.

NewbyDL06 said:

Objective: We have product moving through a plant at a rate of 50/day. This product moves through a PLC controlled machine designed to press fit a part on the end.

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This would imply that the machine is up and running

NewbyDL06 said:

The press will have a position and pressure transducer feeding back to the PLC. I need to have a record (logged data) of the position and pressure for each product.

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But this implies either the PLC is not controlling the press operation or that it is not finished yet.

You have already stated that you may not have chosen the correct hardware, this might be the right moment to pause and re think your real needs before you get deeper ($) into the project. Press and motion controls are generally handed off to a dedicated motion controller because a PLC does not have the capability for fine motion control.

NewbyDL06 said:

Eventually, i would like to be able to either read or produce a bar code at this point to help save operator input time. Is this C-More capable of such? Oh, one more thing... some of the user input data is tagged for the PLC. Each customer requires a different spec for the position. Some may want 31 while others want 26 or 35 and so on. I have included this info in the recipe with the customers info.

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If you already have Direct Soft 5, then there are some low budget ways to get the data into a CSV file that you can manipulate with Excell or Open Office. But classically there are data gathering software packages that do a much better job.

Thanks for the help.

Sorry to mislead. The existing eq is manually controlled and does not offer the ability to produce the report. Everything i've explained is what i am hoping to avchieve as part of an upgrade. At this point, i am simply playing on the bench.

I have not purchased the full version of Direct Soft yet. At this point just toying around with the free version for trial. Can you please elaborate on your ideas mentioned in the last statement? Also, do you recommend a specific motion controller? I am not sure that i need "fine motion control". Why would a PLC not work for the application?

Thanks again for the help.

NewbyDL06 said:

The existing eq is manually controlled and does not offer the ability to produce the report. Everything i've explained is what i am hoping to avchieve as part of an upgrade. At this point, i am simply playing on the bench.

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Ok, In your original post you mentioned having already done some CMore programming, Have you connected it to the 06 and done some controlling?

NewbyDL06 said:

I have not purchased the full version of Direct Soft yet. At this point just toying around with the free version for trial. Can you please elaborate on your ideas mentioned in the last statement?

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I do not have the free version to try this on. It's a feature not documented in the help or any manuals, the only place you will find it mentioned is in "the tip of the day" when you first open a project.

Here is how to get data from a Direct Logic PLC into a CSV file without any extra software.

Open your project.

You must be online, then click on Debug, all status on.

Click on the data Icon. This will open a window with 99 lines for data. then type the address for the data you want to export in the element column. The value that is in that address will show in the column marked status.

Place your cursor in the data window and right click, click on export, save all and name it so you can find it. This will make a coma separated file you can open in Excell or Open Office.

NewbyDL06 said:

Also, do you recommend a specific motion controller?

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The best I have found are made by Delta computer systems http://www.deltamotion.com/ . Allen Bradley uses Delta to make the modules used in their PLC's

NewbyDL06 said:

I am not sure that i need "fine motion control". Why would a PLC not work for the application?

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PLC's are not fast enough for most press and motion scenarios. If the press is ultra slow a PLC may work without a dedicated motion controller to control the motion and force. It is very common for a PLC to control the items around the press and use a motion controller for the press. The PLC would communicate with the motion controller for coordination.

However if you were only doing 50 a day and it took 1 minute to move the press 4 inches and you were able to live with .010" error then a PLC without motion control could possibly work for you.

The product moves through a PLC controlled machine designed to press fit a part on the end. The press will have a position and pressure transducer feeding back to the PLC. I need to have a record (logged data) of the position and pressure for each product.

Click to expand...

The existing eq is manually controlled...

Click to expand...

There are many types of press, and some are not very complicated. My intrepretation is that the PLC will not really be "controlling" the press except in the sense of giving it a start and stop commmand. The main goal is to gather data from the press, which should not require a motion controller.

Is there a way to make the DL06 log data automatically to a CSV file? If not, then you will have to program your PLC to interface with your C-More, collect the data in the C-More, and then save to a computer file or hard drive through a USB port. At a slow rate of 50 per day, or about 6 per hour, you can use 3 C-more display words (normally meant to display numbers but could also retrive data from the PLC) to save the bar code number, position, and pressure reading for each part in real time.

Thank you again for the help Vaughn.

I have connected the C-More to the DL06 and begun some controlling. Again, just on the bench.

I found the tip and ran the procedure as explained. However, there is two problems with this...1) i need the file save to be triggered by the operator from the HMI periodically throughout the day. 2) it is important that i save the trending from my graph, or some form thereof, with the file. THe suggested process seems to only save a snapshot of the element values when requested while in the DS5 program.

I think we will be ok with the PLC if i can get the data i need. I will be ok with about 1% accuracy and we dont need that much speed. However, i had a look at the Delta products and like the idea that i could possibly add it into the system at a later date if the production rates demand it. I am curious though.... Is the programming software free? I tried to find a cost but i cant see to. Also, would the controller help with the data file requirements i have?

I have done some more research meanwhile and have another question.... Would the DataWORX software by AD help with my data requirements? Has anyone had any experience with this?

Thanks again for the help.

Looking through the Automation Direct Screen Creator manual, there is no good way to automatically save PLC data out of a C-More Direct Touch 8" operator screen. The C-More panels do save data points for the Trend Graphs, but the manuals do not list any way to externally save that data to another device. There could be undocumented methods to access those data files.

The C-More can save data to a CE card in csv format. From there, you could either retrieve the file on the CE card from another computer on the network or someone could manually swap out the CE card and open the csv file with Excel.

Thanks again for the help guys.

It is my understanding that the C-more has the capability to create certain files (.csv) based on logged information. Then, there are several ways in which one can retrieve the info or have it sent to a remote computer. My issue is in the limit of the data that is logged in the C-more. I really needed the C-more to log the loaded recipe as well. This recipe consists of Ascii. It appears to me that the C-more will only log graph points, alarms, and messages. Unless i am missing something, none of this can be configured to report ascii. IDK.

I am wondering if anyone would know if DataWorx would fit this ticket well? I know i would need to purchase an ECOM card.