Any alternative to historian SE using OPC?

MMMcLovin

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Jan 2017
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I am not familiar with factory talk historian se. My understanding is it is used for time statistics or something? Is there a way to obtain these statistics with OPC and a little programming instead? The price for historian is a little bit up there.

Thanks!
 
You can pull data using OPC into any number of different collection schemes.

When you say, statistics, what are you trying to do exactly? Metrics? OEE stuff? Shift reporting?
 
Based on you mentioning FactoryTalk I will make the assumption that you want to log from AB PLCs. In that case you can use AdvancedHMI to do all the things Historian will do. Somethings can be done through drag-and-drop and others will require you to get your hands into writing a little code. For example, the BasicDataLogger, as the name implies, will log data points to a text file. For more advanced things, such as DB logging, you will need to write a half dozen or so lines of code. To perform analysis, you can use SQL queries for some or VB code.

The cost of AdvancedHMI is substantially lower than the cost of FactoryTalk. In fact if you take the cost of FactoryTalk and subtract it from itself, you come to the cost of AdvancedHMI. As an added the communication drivers are part of the package, so you do not need to deal with OPC servers.
 
FactoryTalk Historian SE is brand-badged OSI PI. You can look up OSI PI on youtube. Rockwell's price is actually quite a discount from OSI's price. It's not unusual for some place to have $millions of PI running. Microsoft is using PI to track of all their data centers power consumption, usage, and temperature.. for ecample.

PI is considered a process historian, not just a data logger. A typical process historian makes a lot of decision on which data-point is worthwhile to keep. As someone who done this for a living said once, "not all number are data". Data is meaningful, it tells you something.

A process historian may not be something you need and there are cheaper one out there made by GE, Wonderware, etc... that are something between PI and your dumb data-logging software. Check your requirement and spec accordingly.
 
AdvancedHMI runs on visual studio. It is designed to allow you to quickly get information from the PLC and present it on a computer screen.
Getting the data to log into a database requires a little more programming but there are tutorials that will help get you started. Within visual studio you can use a number of computer programs.
Here is a quick example of creating a login with AdvancedHMI. This example uses an access database.
http://accautomation.ca/creating-a-hmi-login-screen-on-advancedhmi/
It is a very good package.
Regards,
 
Lets be realistic, AdvancedHMI is NOT a historian. Nor is it a SCADA or MES system. For what it is (HMI software) it's a nice little package. Stipulations of "some code here, and some queries there..." trying to constitute it as a historian is a really stretch.

OP, what is it you are trying to accomplish besides looking at $ signs?
 
Lets be realistic, AdvancedHMI is NOT a historian. Nor is it a SCADA or MES system. For what it is (HMI software) it's a nice little package. Stipulations of "some code here, and some queries there..." trying to constitute it as a historian is a really stretch.
I 100% agree with you. The target application and what it does easiest and very well is creating HMIs, such as a PanelView substitute. However that message wasn't conveyed very well and the majority of users have pushed the applications far beyond after discovering the capabilities go farther that as long as you are good at or willing to learn to write a bit of VB code.

To understand this, you must understand the architecture of the software. AdvancedHMI is merely a toolset for use in creating applications with Visual Studio. Users are not limited to the tools that come with the base package which allow you to create applications without writing code. Instead Users are free to write code, extend existing tools, or even create their own tools. Knowing that Visual Studio and .NET are generic tools for creating any kind of application is what's important fully understand. The AdvancedHMI tools are just the huge jump start to creating applications that communicate with PLCs.

Does the software have the basic tools for easily creating a historian application? No, because its base toolset is targeted for HMI development. Is it possible to do the same tasks a historian does? Absolutely if someone is willing to write some code.

Just to give an idea of what can be done, here are a couple projects that I have personally done and deployed into factories:

1) An application that reads process variables through each stage of a machine for a total of 35 process values related to every part produced on a machine and records the information to a SQL Server at an average rate of 3000 parts per day. The data was packed in multiple FIFOs in a ControlLogix and had to be pulled out, processed, then signaled back to the PLC that section of data was retrieved.
How many lines of code to do this application? About 200 line of VB. This application is downloadable from the Sample application section for anyone wishing to see how it is done.

An accompanying application was also created that displays the current or historical production counts from this database and displays it on an hour by hour and press by press grid.

2) An application that records temperature samples from a cooker every 15 seconds and stores them in a SQL Server.
How many lines of code did that take? 10 lines

The OP requested an alternative in which they could write "a little programming instead" and such is my proposed solution.
 
Another thought on the subject. Generally students coming out of school will be taught some sort of visual studio applications. This will be in automation fundamentals, computer programming, etc.
The future in my opinion will be to adapt to the changing environment. If we have a flexible system foundation, future needs can be adapted.
Mobile Devices, Tablets, etc.

I agree that this question needs some further clarification. Do they already have a copy of Historian? How much information collection is required?
 
The idea is to be able to create graphs/charts from statistical data. Cycle time, alarms, how frequently a button is pressed maybe. That kinda thing.
 
The idea is to be able to create graphs/charts from statistical data. Cycle time, alarms, how frequently a button is pressed maybe. That kinda thing.
I'll be more than willing to walk you through a step by step on how to do this with AdvancedHMI and a few other software packages all at no cost to you, except for a few hours of your time,

Let me know if you're interested in trying it. But before hand I will need to know what version of Windows you are using and what PLC you want to gather data from to ensure it is feasible with the software I have in mind.
 
Rockwells historian is way overpriced. I would look into ignition. They have a full suite of software that will do what you want. Personally, I would use their SQL bridge module and then advancedhmi and MySQL. You can do it all in advancedhmi, but I like having the transactions run as service, which is what you get with ignition. I don't agree with paullys response. Actually I thought it was idiotic.
 
Rockwells historian is way overpriced. I would look into ignition. They have a full suite of software that will do what you want. Personally, I would use their SQL bridge module and then advancedhmi and MySQL. You can do it all in advancedhmi, but I like having the transactions run as service, which is what you get with ignition. I don't agree with paullys response. Actually I thought it was idiotic.
Paully was right on, IMO. However, I can absolutely see where some would think it, based on their understanding what a historian is. As with many intense discussion around here (and in the wider world), it starts misunderstanding of what word(s) represent as well as a lot of unstated premise.

-HMI vs SCADA
-roll your own and *save* a million vs pay life-saving for AB/GE/Siemens.

In the PROCESS CONTROL world, a process historian have some very important requirement. It must have the ability to select and compress data. DATA LOGGER, on the other hand, usually doesn't do incoming data discrimination and also capable of faster rate (millisec) sampling, but not always.

OP's post seems like s/he was looking at a need for historian without going into detail of the requirement. Therefore, Paully's answer was right on.
 
That is very kind of you Archie! However I would hate to waste your time, as I just wanted to know what options I had. The actual project I am working on will very likely use historian because that is what was requested. That being said I cant give to many details because a) Its confidential and I cant give to many details, and b) I really don't know too much more than the info I have given. I was told we need to make graphs for time-based statistics using historian, When I saw the price tag it made me think "Holy F###, there has to be an alternative?

Thank you for your offer and the resources you have already given. AdvancedHMI looks really cool and I am definitely going to explore it a bit.
 
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I have Historian, My predecessor purchased it so I started using it. Way over kill for what we need but since we paid for it I might as well use it. Using FT Vantage point that came with it is very limiting. Would like to use the FT DB connector with VB or AdvancedHMI.
 

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