Grafana and PLCs

[widelto]

HI folks:

I am testing and trying to learn GRAFANA from https://grafana.com/

I like their graphs and interfaces (dashboards).

Has anyone used this package with PLCs and how was the performance.

I want to use it to analyse and show my data.

I have FTview SE, but I liked the idea of data analysis.

I only have PLCs from Allen Bradley.

Best regards,

william delatorre

 

[mk42]

HI folks:

I am testing and trying to learn GRAFANA from https://grafana.com/

I like their graphs and interfaces (dashboards).

Has anyone used this package with PLCs and how was the performance.

I want to use it to analyse and show my data.

I have FTview SE, but I liked the idea of data analysis.

I only have PLCs from Allen Bradley.

Best regards,

william delatorre

I've messed around with grafana in my home, tracking my statistics about my internet connection. It seems to run fine, and does make nice looking graphs. However, it only visualizes data already stored elsewhere, it doesn't do the storage itself.



I doubt it could interface with the PLCs directly, but if FTview has a historian or DB the data are stored in, then grafana might be able to pull the data from there. It has a whole ton of input plugins.

 

[widelto]

Thanks MK42:
My idea is to look for cheap AB driver & OPC , then log data to an MS SQL database. Grafana has an interface with MS SQL. I will have to deal with it.
Before doing so I just want to hear experiences from others.

 

[Thomas_v2]

A neat combination is Node-Red with an appropriate driver, Influx-DB for storage and Grafana for display.

Unfortunately the graph options in Grafana depend much on the datasource you are using. Some are very limited when you compare them to Influx, and there are many open cases and feature requests at the Grafana page since years.

 

[chud]

node red...as thomas_v2 said. If you dont have a database then again as he said use influx-db to store the data. But there asre very nice solution on the market for your needs like secomea sitemangers

 

[mk42]

Unfortunately the graph options in Grafana depend much on the datasource you are using..

Huh, didn't know that. I'd only used it with Prometheus, where the graphing seemed relatively extensive.

 

[cardosocea]

A neat combination is Node-Red with an appropriate driver, Influx-DB for storage and Grafana for display.
Unfortunately the graph options in Grafana depend much on the datasource you are using. Some are very limited when you compare them to Influx, and there are many open cases and feature requests at the Grafana page since years.

This is probably the best solution. As a proof of concept to learn a bit about Modbus I created a current meter with an ESP8266 that talked in modbus and configured node-red, influx and grafana on a raspberry pi to collect and display the data.

It worked really well, although the Modbus implementation was a bit clunky on the microprocessor side.

I believe it was dmroeder that created a node-red node that implements CIP messaging to be used with AB PLC's, so it's worth looking at it.

Failing that, there is a Python package (again dmroeder) that talks to the PLC that you can use to pass the data onto the influx DB.

The only downside of node-red is the backing up of the "code" that is quite poor to non-existent and to actually start your "code" you have to start node-red from the same location. Not a dealbreaker, but annoying.

 

[Thomas_v2]

Huh, didn't know that. I'd only used it with Prometheus, where the graphing seemed relatively extensive.

I've written an interface for a special database to Grafana using the JSON interface, which is kind of generic driver in Grafana. When I was done, I noticed that with this driver there is no option to alias the name from the database, which is possible in the Influx driver for example. Means, that you only see the name from the database in Grafana graphs or tables, with no possibility to change it. There is a feature request from many users since years ago, but it seems that they don't want to add something, at least not in the free version of Grafana. There are other points that for no reason don't work with the JSON driver.

 

[widelto]

@ to all of you who wrote:
A lot of ideas, Now I know where to start. Thanks to all.