Trending Siemen's S7 data

Hello all,

I'm new to working with Siemens. Iv'e got a S7-400 system.
Step7 Ver. 5.3.

I see that unlike Rockwell, Siemens Simatic Manager does not support local parameter trending. (e.g - trend an analog signal). I'm assuuming that since I'm dealing with Siemens, I have to buy a seperate program to do so?? Is there something some one might reccomend?? Siemens product or third party?? Found a couple on the net, e.g ServiceLab9, Matrikon (OPC server + Historian lite) etc. These seem like too much for what I want to do. Anything simpler out there??

Thanks,

Andrew Evenson

Andrew Evenson said:

I see that unlike Rockwell, Siemens Simatic Manager does not support local parameter trending. (e.g - trend an analog signal)

Click to expand...

True, unless you are using the CFC language. I was hoping they would add it in version 5.5 because I really like that feature

Andrew Evenson said:

Is there something some one might reccomend?? Siemens product or third party??

Click to expand...

What exactly do you need the trending for? If it is for tuning a PID controller you could use the "Control Parameter Assignment" tool from Siemens, it should be installed together with step 7. You can also configure a new operator panel in WinCC Flexible or ProTool and activate the runtime for this project on your laptop. If this is not enough you'll need a third party software or a real SCADA system.