Thanks everyone for the quick replies.
cbeck77: Everything is unspecified at the moment - we're very early on in the project. I just never ran up against this "Plug in by USB and start logging" requirement before and was wondering if anyone else had approached it. Typically, we use Rockwell hardware / software.
Alaric: Yes - that's the basic functionality that I'm looking for. I've seen similar DAQ packages from
LabView,
Omega, and
Windmill. What I don't know is how robust these packages are. Have you worked with the Measurement Computing solution? One potential issue with these solutions is (I think), that the interface to Excel is only with batch exporting. Something like
TalTech's WinWedge software is an example of "realtime" data logging in Excel that would be desireable in this application. Another potential issue is scalability - this specific application is
very basic so this approach ought to work fine, but if the prototype looks promising and people keep adding I/O . . .
Ron: That may be the approach we need, but in the case of something like Alaric's solution, there may not even be a PLC (these are simple USB devices that allow polling of real world I/O from the client software installed on the end user's laptop). Your approach may be more scalable.
Thanks again,
Marc