Excel to/from PLC

[wilkerson29847]

Hello Everyone.

I am getting ready to start trying to implement a set up to allow Excel to read/write to various machine PLCs. I asked the IT tech to install MS Excel on the server where I have RSLinx Gateway installed and he said that he is not allowed to install MS Office directly onto a server and suggested that I use the web based MS Excel. Will it work like that? If not, can you think of another way so other people can access the excel file to update PLC data files?

 

[dmroeder]

Is Excel an absolute must? If so, is CSV file on the table? Excel can open CSV files.

You can eliminate Excel and RSLinx by using something like AdvancedHMI, or if you want to dig into python, pylogix (shameless self promotion). Both AdvancedHMI and pylogix can communicate to the PLC without RSLinx. This will let you read/write to the PLC without the server being involved.

Edit, AHMI can work with Excel files, if the computers that will do this work have excel on them. You can also work with excel files in python using xlwings, openpyxl, etc.

 

[I_Automation]

You can run Excel on your computer, and whoever's computer you want to access the file, just have the XLS file on the server.


I have quite a few files for Excel, Word and CAD on the network so I can access them from all my computers, and the server has cloud access so I can get to it worldwide. I am, however, the only person that accesses them.


I remember that the EPPS add-on for AdvancedHMI to write Excel files required that Excel was NOT installed on that computer.

 

[dmroeder]

I remember that the EPPS add-on for AdvancedHMI to write Excel files required that Excel was NOT installed on that computer.

You don't need that module to work with excel files, Visual Studio has an excel module

 

[wilkerson29847]

Hi all,

I acquired another laptop from IT and an OEM version of RS Linx for the Excel to PLC interface. I can get the data to read from the PLC using the Copy DDE/OPC link in RS Linx and pasting into Excel. Here is my question:

We are using an MES system and I want to be able to update the Part numbers in the PLCs from this master Excel File and all of these Part numbers are string values. All of the examples I have seen show updating multiple tags with one command button in excel but they are all in sequence, e.g. Tag[0], Tag[1], Tag[2], etc.

In my situation the tags are part of a UDT like the following:
Tool[1].SAP_Number_1
Tool[1].SAP_Number_2

Tool[2].SAP_Number_1
Tool[2].SAP_Number_2

Tool[3].SAP_Number_1
Tool[3].SAP_Number_2............and so on.

Also, there are between 40 and 50 PLCs that will have to be updated depending on what part numbers change with revision changes. Am I wasting my time or is there a fairly easy way to do this? Do I have to have a separate Command Button in Excel for SAP_Number_1 and SAP_Number_2? I currently have a worksheet made for each machine, so would I need 2 Command Buttons per sheet for a Read operation and 2 per sheet for a Write Operation?. Can someone give me some direction? I have never tried to send and receive data from Excel to/from a PLC so I am pretty clueless on the VBA side of Excel.

Thank you to everyone helping those of us with less experience and knowledge!!