Advise on PLC data acquisition

[wdd0422]

I would like to network 40 to 50 PLC's for some basic data collection. Once a shift I want to log things like production totals, rejects, machine downtime, runtime, ect, put it into excell, archive it daily so I could generate weekly or monthly reports.

I have been researching options on the Internet but I have no experience in this area. Is there a fairly simple basic way to do this? Any information, advice, guidenece, links, recommended reading would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Helliana]

I don't think there is any simple cut and dry solution. With that many PLCs, i would go for some kind of historian package, but which one would depend on what types of PLCs you have and what type of communications are available to them.

I would talk to your electrical distributor and see what historian options they have available.

And just a warning, most setups i've seen have been fairly expensive. I know AB's historian software is really expensive (like all their software) and requires a pretty powerful server PC with Windows Server as an operating system. Other users can probably recommend a cheaper route, but remember that with AB "You can buy better, but you can't buy more expensive!"

 

[Mark-]

Hello,

PeakHMI can peform the task.

 

[grs]

You say you just want to put the data into excel for pulling reports from so all you'd really need would be a DDE/OPC server for the PLCs, Excel, and some VBA scripting in Excel.

It depends on what you mean by 'basic data collection' though, and also how complex the reporting needs to be.

 

[Hydro Power Guy]

The code to track all that data can either be in a historian, or in the PLC's. If you decide to create the registers in the PLC's then XLReporter is a really good basic reporting system. http://www.sytech.com/

If you decide to not put it in the PLC's then you need your reporting software to do it. Usually requires a more expensive system like a historian.

Can be done either way. XLReporter is inexpensive but requires supporting code in the PLC. Historian is more expensive, but can collect (usually) OPC data. The OPC data can then be manipulated.

 

[RheinhardtP]

Historian

I don't think there is any simple cut and dry solution. With that many PLCs, i would go for some kind of historian package, but which one would depend on what types of PLCs you have and what type of communications are available to them.

I would talk to your electrical distributor and see what historian options they have available.

And just a warning, most setups i've seen have been fairly expensive. I know AB's historian software is really expensive (like all their software) and requires a pretty powerful server PC with Windows Server as an operating system. Other users can probably recommend a cheaper route, but remember that with AB "You can buy better, but you can't buy more expensive!"

I agree with Helliana, a centralized Historian will be your best bet i think for generating reports. Many Historian providers will sell you software based on Tag count. The benefits of having an Historian far out-way the costs i have seen associated with it.

You can have an IOserver like Topserver or Kepware to handle the IO scanning to your PLC's and have your Historian connect to your IOserver. They should cover all your 3rd party driver requirements.

Many of the Historians have excel add in that makes it easy to define your report structure within excel. Wonderware Activefactory Workbook comes to mind.


I would imagine your networking infrastructure and Hardware might be your undoing. Undoubtedly the PLC's are different types,models. ect. I would start this exercise by making sure the infrastructure is in place to be able to gather all the data to a central server.


As for doing this in the PLC , i would not even attempt this can only imagine all the hours of testing on 40-50 PLC's.

Rheinhardt