Hi, I am working on a project where i have to access a folder on an external hard drive ( have an IP adress) to get a list of file names. The file names have a certain format and are needed in the PLC to run certain recipes.

I am using Rslogix5000 and RSView and still not sure how to access the hard drive to get the file names.
I don't think that this can be done fromthe PLC and i am not sure if it is achievable through the RSVIEW activex objects or vba scripting. Do i have to use VB.NET (or some other language) ??

Do you guys have any suggestions ??
Thanks in advance

If the external hard drive has an IP address, then it's probably a NAS device. I recommend mapping the share as a network drive, something like "net use z: \\ip_address\share password /user:username". You can then work the Z drive like a local one.

Please provide more detail with regard to "getting a list of file names in a certain format to run certain recipes". That description doesn't adequately provide what you're trying to accomplish. But you are correct, your CLX PLC won't be able to do it without a PC and it does sound like an RSView VBA scripting task.

Okay..
I have my plc Program running on one computer
I amUsing a RSVIEW panelview

There is another separate computer that has certain files on a folder on its hard drive
I need to somehow access this folder to get the file names, transfer them to the plc, and display them on the panelview.

I also wanna be able to delete files in that folder from the panelview.
I am not sure if i can do it through OPC, DDE, ADO, or some other way..

Thanks for your reply and i hope this clarify my question

You need to clarify "RSVIEW panelview". This actually makes no sense at all.

There are 3 versions of "RS-View":

RS-View 32
RS-View SE
RS-View ME

If you have a Panelview Plus, it is running an embedded version of RS-View ME. It's designed as a standalone unit and does NOT have access to "PC" oriented things like file systems, or even OPC as far as I know. It's really designed just to talk to PLC's. It doesn't even have any sort of scripting capability.

If you have a real PC (as in, can you get to a Windows desktop??), then you are running either RS-View 32 or RS-View SE. Both have access to scripting via VBA, and you can most certainly access any local drives that are accessible on the machine. Just map the drive and from there on, do everything you need to do from VBA on the "local" file system.

I am using factorytalk veiw ME.. and i dont know where to add the vba code in it.. does it support vba scripting??

No. It doesn't support anything like that. At best (and I'm guessing here) you MIGHT be able to feed it data from another OPC server (another PC). It doesn't have any kind of programmable capabilities beyond being a "graphical terminal". There's no way for the terminal itself to grab the data you are looking for.

You need to invest in another piece of hardware or system.

I highly recommend that you move your recipes OFF the PC and onto the PLC since that's the standard way of doing things. You can probably use some sort of recipe system in RS-View ME but then the recipes will be stored in the memory on the Panelview Plus and not anywhere generally accessible.