VB Code for developing SCADA

Hi all,

We are mostly using intellution scada and wincc for most of our projects. But for some small projects we feel using this scada are too expensive and decided to develop a small SCADA for small applications b own.

Can any one suggest how to begin? Especially how to setup our own drivers for various hardwares?

It would be great if the application what we do can be a OPC Server so that no need to develop drivers for every hardware.

Please suggest some links where i can download the VB codes for starting..

Thanks
saravanan

An off the shelf touch panel may be better value here.
Have you considered that?

Visual Basic

I have used communications drivers from VHMIAutomation for some small SCADA applications. Doug is right though, you will have to invest a pretty significant amount of time to develop your application.

Good Luck,

Big Al

A less expensive option may be Omron CX-Supervisor. You buy the developer package and then only have to buy a runtime version each time you use it. Unlimited tag count and will run with OPC to any PLC or other device. You just require the particular brand OPC client.

I have used it and it is quite OK but not a Citect.

BigAl said:

I have used communications drivers from VHMIAutomation for some small SCADA applications.

Click to expand...

Please share us your experience about VHMIAutomation DLLs, I'm really interested in it as it's very low cost But I want to be sure of its reliability, bugs-free .. etc

And does it require a runtime liscence (pay for each exe)?

Thanks in advance

No runtime license required

For the most part I have had good experince with VHMI drivers. I have found them to be pretty much bug free. I have mainly been using the GE Serial driver. It would be a mistake to compare this software to something like Wonderware, with VHMI you are going to have to do most of the leg work yourself. There are no preconfigured buttons or gauges, and no TAG dictionary. I think if you have a good understanding of Visual Basic, and are able to stay organized, they are a good option.

One book that I would highly recommend is "Creating Human Machine Interfaces Using Visual Basic" by Jeff Weigant. When I first got interested in using VB, I found this to be a great resource.

Big Al.

Thanks BigAl for your reply,

Actually I'm very familiar doing SCADA applications using both packages (specially InTouch) and also visual basic.
Using VB is harder of course and takes more time but some times you have to do it with VB to lower down the cost.

I developd a SCADA application for a water treatment unit (raw water and deminralization) and it was nearly 800 PLC I/O, The software developed using VB has all features found in SCADA packages (Trending, Alarming, animation, historical, supervisory control .. etc) and it was very succesful project that I'm proud of it till now.

For communication I used OPC server and client from software toolbox and for graphics I used DaqBench ActiveX controls from Adlink, and we built the alarming and historical in our office.

My personal website in my signature contains some screen shots of the user interface if you are interested in this.

Hmmm, The human always loves to speak about hem self !!

Thanks again for your information