Data Interface

Guys, aplogise for being off topic but you blokes are so helpfull. I need to design a PC screen where the operator types in pack details,(Length, width etc) When he presses "enter" I need to write this data to a file for viewing with Excel. I write PLC code and Scada system and to use citect for such a small, literally one page, system is such an overkill. Can anyone suggest a package I could use. (even a $500 access package seems excessive as I have 5 of these to do). Or does anyone want to give me a quote??
Regards
Steve D

Steve,

Probably the simplest, cheapest thing for you to do is to write a very simple VBA application to run with Excel.

Doing that, you can run it "like a program", and you are already writing to the "native" Excel format.

Good luck,

Marc

You didnt state PLC type or network type, but because you mentioned RSView and you are going on the cheap, I assume that you mean AB and DF1 respectively.

The cheapest and still releatively easy way is to get an ActiveX from either Automated solutions (from 500 USD and up) or Ingear (1000 USD for the "suite").
Both works directly with for example Excel.

Unless, of course, if someone will write a one-off for you for a reasonable fee.

Merz

Take a look at www.merz-sw.com
They have a package for Windows 9x,NT,2000,XP called
ASPIC 3.30 RUNTIME SUPER LITE 50 tags, 15 screens for 429.00.
It's an OPC client so it would run on top of an OPC server
(such as RSLinx). They also sell OPC server drivers. They have
a most inexpensive DF1 OPC server on the market for 109.00.
Other than that you may want to consider using VB6 and MSCOMM.
If you are up to it you could also use VB.NET.
VB.NET though has an issue with the serial port support.
The best way and for free is to download Microsoft's
VB resource tool kit which contains SAX.NET community
edition .NET DLL for serial comms.

Steve,
Do you have OPC DA server(s) and Visual Studio .NET? If so I would recommend using our .NET assembly. You could have this written and tested in a couple of hours. The developer’s license is 285USD and you can build as many applications as you want with no runtime licenses. There are lots of examples (Studio Projects) in VB.NET and C# to help you get started and you can download it for free (runtimes will run 20 minutes until licensed).
There is also a cool (and free) client for OPC that does things like scaling, masking and buffering of tag data.
Let me know if I can help you get started.

http://IndustrialDotNet.com/Products

[email protected]

Mark