LabView connection with Siemens S7 PLC

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Thread Starter

Les Bond

I am currently involved in a project using a Siemens S7 PLC which inturn communicates with 2 Siemens MC masterdrives over profibus.

Our customer has specified a LabView front end on a standard PC. There is no additioanl HMI.

National Instruments have suggested we use a PC mounted Profibus card for over £1000. However this means we would have to configure the customers PC in our installation, something customers are not always happy with.It also means that for further projects we would have to pass on the cost of a card for each machine.

Our preferred solution is using National Instruments OPC server and datasocket to communicate through the MPI port on the PLC. We know this will not be as fast as Profibus but this is not a problem in the control system.

I have heard from our distributors that a Siemens integrator has used this solution but I would be interested to hear from anyone else who has used this set up.

Thanks very much and I look forward to hearing any suggestions.


 
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Shahid Waqas Chaudhry

Dear

Solution based on SIEMENS products

Solution 1:
Use the SIEMENS CP5611 card [MLFB: 6gk1 561 1am00] (Pretty cheap compared to the profibus card from siemens or elsewhere). Connect it to the PLC via MPI card (no additional drivers needed). You can then use the OPC Server.

Solution 2:
If you want to use profibus, you can use SIEMENS CP5611 or CP5613, later being costly. Use the 5611 with software drivers to provide you profibus
[Softnet - I recommend you to use the S7-Softnet since it is easier communication that way]. The SIMATIC OPC comes free with the package and
you can use that.

I believe using OPC, you do not have to purchase the CP (communiaction card) for each client PC. Just use the OPC server.

Shahid
 
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