Logging

I am using AB CompactLogix PLC's. I'd really like to be able to log numerous channels (maybe up to 50) on my laptop during commissioning (runs are typically 30 mins to an hour). I envisage creating move instructions to some register for ethernet comms to my laptop (Win 7 - 64bit). Is there any software that I can configure to interpret and log the data if I connect my laptop ethernet port to the PLC network? I'd really like to be able to do this without additional data logger hardware (such as Red Lion, etc), and open source software would be ideal. Obviously this is a big ask, is it also unrealistic?

I know that I can use trend screens etc in RS Logix, but it is not always possible to have a machine with RS Logix around, plus it is not very configurable.

Cheers.

You can log to the memory card. I'm not sure how well that works, but its possible.

Ignition scada. 2 hr demo licence

If you have RSLinx and Microsoft Excel installed on your laptop, you can use DDE to poll the data and a macro to store it in a table format.

This can be done very easily with AdvancedHMI (and is open source). After you get Visual Studio installed and AdvancedHMI downloaded, it takes about 2 minutes to set it up. AdvancedHMI has a native ControlLogix driver, so it does not need RSLinx or any other OPC drivers, everything you need is included in the package.

Since this is requested quite often, I created a post on the AdvancedHMI forum on how to do it:

http://advancedhmi.com/forum/index.php?topic=432.0

kst

My next project is my first with Allen Bradley PLC and I was planning on using Archie's advanced HMI to get the data from the PLC to CSV so i can plot with KST during commissioning. So thanks archie for the example!

The program kst https://kst-plot.kde.org/ can do real time plotting of the CSV data, with multiple plots per tab, zooming, applying equations to the data, etc, anything is possible it seems with kst... it is invaluable to me. A poor man's data acquisition system.