PLC connection to PC

I have a Keyence PLC that I want to connect to a PC. Has anyone used inexpensive PCI cards that can handle I/O to launch audio files or just commands in general. I looked at Automation Direct and they offer no such products. I thought of using RS-232 port but I can't program in VB (yet)

Before I get obvious negative comments, I have looked for prior posts and nothing came up.

Basically I want to set up a cheap and simple setup for Halloween using a PLC, sensors, valves to control animitronic characters and lighting using a PLC that I know and have readily available.

I would like to activate the program using stragically placed sensors and timers to start certain sound effects running off a PC through outputs commanded from the PLC.

Any thoughts or ideas would be greatly appreciated.
B

/sigh. DOS was easy.

How are you at programming? Do you have Visual Basic? or C?...

With any programming ability, I'd say write a simple program that reads a serial port, and then uses Windoze media services to play a sound based on the serial port input.

In DOS, you could simply pipe a COM port right into the command line, and send it commands serially (SBPlay MySound.Wav [ENTER], for example). There is a chance you might be able to do that in windoze too, but I haven't looked around.

If you can redirect a serial port to a command line in a Windoze command shell, you can send "WMPLAYER.EXE MySound.Wav". You would have to add the full path to WMPLAYER to the system path line though, and should be in the directory with your sounds.

Just an idea. (or 2)

Thanks Rdrast but the one MAIN problem I have is that I don't have serial port ability with the micro PLC I have.

Since this is a personal home project I don't have the funds to buy a PLC with that option or I should say I do but with the cost of software... it exceeds my controls budget. I know that there are controller cards that accept DC inputs and do DC outputs but the programming is the wall I run into. My other frankenstein option would be to connect a digital player and some mini cylinders that would actuate to hit rewind/play...

If you could handle it by having serial comms available, maybe you should just go out and get the Parallax Basic Stamp .

Interface to that with some discrete, binary encoded, I/O lines from the plc, have it decode them, and send commands to the PC.