Does anybody have any pre-written PLC logic for sending text messages to mobiles/pagers from an SLC or Micrologix PLC?

I'll tell you what I did one time, but you have to have a dedicated PC to make it work...

I had one of our machinary guys that run a wire cnc ask me to make the cnc call him on the cell phone when the wire broke.

So here is what I did:

I took a micrologix, RS Linx Full version, Excel, and Windows 98 Phone Dialer.

I wrote a small PLC program to send a DDE bit to Excel, in Excel I wrote a small VBA script to do a "SEND KEYS" command to the Windows 98 dialer, it dialed the phone number, and I could send text message using the key tones on the phone....pretty wacked way of doing it, but it was all I could think of at the time...

I have that Excel code around here somewhere, if you want to see it. I doubt your gonna want a dedicated PC to do your project however, but I figured I share and maybe give you some ideas.

Implementing the "TAP Protocol" used by most alphanumeric pagers is pretty ambitious for a PLC... and impossible for the MicroLogix 1000, which does not support ASCII functions.

I've tried it, and gave up on the project after a couple of weeks of dabbling. It was cheaper to buy an autodialer than to spend my time figuring out the protocol.

The simplest way to accomplish this task is to use a modem that is preconfigured to send text messages, but to get it's data from the PLC. A-B sells modems like this:

http://support.rockwellautomation.com/pagi...pmodem_main.asp

If you already have an Ethernet network in place, or MMI software running on a PC, you might consider the e-mail capabilities of the 1761-NET-ENI or the Messenger feature in RSView32.

Hi,
It is cheaper, easier and more powerful to buy a software product that will do the job.

You may use U.C.ME-OPC software (see: http://www.controlsee.com )

U.C.ME-OPC may be connected to any OPC or DDE server and send alarms via Phone, SMS, email, Fax, Multimedia and more.

Michael.

Or have a look at http://www.unitronics.com the M90/91 series are SMS ready and only need a GSM modem (they recommend one by Siemens) to send and receive SMS messages. The software is nice and straight forward for anyone used to AB and can be downloaded free from their site. They are also low cost and include a basic HMI on the front. Can be DIN or panel door mounted and the better models can have remote IO added. SMS messages are constructed easily and can include variables.

As you can tell I quite like them, I would rank them a very close second behind AB for ease of programming.

Heres one I did some time ago as a test examle, pretty basic but it did the job! Apologies for the lack of comments!