Simatic Net, Excel communication error

[MR.Q]

I don't know if this is the right place for the subject at least I'll try.

The company has one of the oldest computers that is a master Windows 98 machine, we want to upgrade this to XP for ease of hardware replacement because finding such Windows 98 machine hardware is getting complicated.

The machine has an excel spreadsheet that reads and writes values to the entire network, it is using a Simatic Net CP 5611.

I was able to get the Excel working there is a button programmed in the Excel to connect to S7data, I get an immediate crash met by going to the debug menu, it seems that Excel is not talking with the cp5621 data logging card and it's a big problem I have configured it the exact same way as our Master machine, the Master machine it is set as ''micro/win cp5611 PPI''

Also is there a big difference between the cp5611 and the cp5621 because on XP the cp5621 shows up as a 5611.

 

[sigmadelta]

On the Windows 98 machine, it is likely you have SIMATIC NET OPC Server installed, and Excel is the OPC Client, and the Micro/Win CP5611 PPI means you're communicating to S7-200 PLCs. How many S7-200 PLCs are there? By now S7-200 PLCs should be considered to be upgraded to S7-1200 PLCs (with built-in Ethernet).

I think replacing the computer with a modern Windows 10/11 computer, Simatic NET and Excel shouldn't be a problem. I believe the CP5621 is backwards compatible with the CP5611 with regards to the Simatic NET (OPC) configuration.

Could you send me your Excel file and SIMATIC NCM PC proiect? You can archive the project using NCM PC Manager by going to File -> Archive to make a zip file.

 

[MR.Q]

On the Windows 98 machine, it is likely you have SIMATIC NET OPC Server installed, and Excel is the OPC Client, and the Micro/Win CP5611 PPI means you're communicating to S7-200 PLCs. How many S7-200 PLCs are there? By now S7-200 PLCs should be considered to be upgraded to S7-1200 PLCs (with built-in Ethernet).

I think replacing the computer with a modern Windows 10/11 computer, Simatic NET and Excel shouldn't be a problem. I believe the CP5621 is backwards compatible with the CP5611 with regards to the Simatic NET (OPC) configuration.

Could you send me your Excel file and SIMATIC NCM PC proiect? You can archive the project using NCM PC Manager by going to File -> Archive to make a zip file.

All right this changes the whole game I didn't expect that, I knew I was missing something I just didn't know what it was.

where do I need to look for and also a step-by-step on where I should obtain the NCM proiect file, because our machine is quite sensitive and I don't want to break it we don't have many backups left

The whole network is using S7-200s and it has 4 CPUs with 2 hmis.

I can send you the Excel files I don't have the SIMATIC NCM.
I do have off-site backups of the entire operating system on multiple drives of course I can't boot them, if I can obtain the file in there that would be a win.

 

[sigmadelta]

I do have off-site backups of the entire operating system on multiple drives of course I can't boot them, if I can obtain the file in there that would be a win.

If there was a way to send me the whole PC backup, I'd find things a lot easier.

 

[MR.Q]

If there was a way to send me the whole PC backup, I'd find things a lot easier.

I can send you the entire drive through a WinRAR file, the file is 1.85gb compressed. Do I use your business email or a personal email you would PM me?

 

[sigmadelta]

My business email is fine: [email protected]

Of course, you should send it using a link from Dropbox, Google Drive etc. I can use any of them.