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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.
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.