I want to visualise data available from an OPC server on to Miocrosoft Excel. Since both the entities are based on the OLE standards feel that the same should be possible.
Anyone can suggest how?
This is both possible and easy. The easiest way to do this is to write a quick VB app in Excel. I can send the full source for a sample app upon request but the general gist of things is as follows:
Dim Server As New OPCServer
Dim WithEvents Group As OPCGroup
Attribute Group.VB_VarHelpID = -1
Server.Connect "desired.opc.server.IDstring"
Set Group = Server.OPCGroups.Add()
Dim Item As OPCItem
Set Item = Group.OPCItems.AddItem("desired.opc.item.tagname", 1)
Group.UpdateRate = 1000
Group.IsSubscribed = True
Group.IsActive = True
You may want to check out the OPC Foundation website -- perhaps it already has sample apps?
There is couple of software packages on the market doing this. We also offer such a solution.
Look on our web site for demos of DDEToOPC and OPCToDDE products.
Petr Placek.
____ Merz Company ... _________________________________
Peter Placek, Sales and Marketing Manager
tel: +420 48 510 0272, fax: +420 48 510 0273 http://www.merz-sw.com_____ ... for Clean Sound of Software
OPC Office Link is designed to make this easy. It is an OPC Client that allows live links to Excel (read or write) from any OPC server - without writing VB Macros, i.e. copy and paste links from OPC browsing. Also allows you to log the OPC items to any ODBC database. For a fully
functional (runs for 20 minutes at a time) trial version go to www.sentech.co.nz/officelink.htm.
Have you had any success? I would like to the exact thing but exactitudes on implementation are hard to find. In my case I am using AB PLC SLC505 with RSLINX and want to display the data on excel spreadsheet. DDE is difficult and unreliable so I was hoping for more succes using OPC.
Matrikon, my employer, offers the OPC2XL, which can do this. It doesn't appear on our website
yet, so contact me directly at "[email protected]", mailto:[email protected] if you would like more information.