carbonat

Hi ECSI I don't know about InduSoft but I think all you have to do is to configure your GPRS (3G) router with a free dyndns.org account (enter it in the dynamic ip section of the router). By doing this, each time the router's dynamic ip changes, it will inform the DNS servers on the internet of the change. So you will only have to *always* use say "freestaticip.dyndns.org" to point to your router and that DNS will automatically resolve to the actual ip address. I am using this technique with ScadaMobile for several remote locations and it is working every time. The GPRS router on the side of the PLC actually gets a different IP each time it gets powered down but the "fixed" DNS you chose on your dyndns.org is always pointing to the right IP. Therefore, the only thing I had to set in ScadaMobile is such a fixed DNS, and then forget about it. Hope that helps, Carbonat

That's an interesting feature. I never realized of it before, thanks. I was already there in CX-Programmer 7 as I've seen. However, unfortunately this does not solve the copy&paste issue for the English locale, and you still have to be careful with decimal places at the right of the decimal point. To complicate things still more I just realized another (much worse) problem when switching from the Spanish to the English locale or back: Some CX-Programmer projects saved with one particular locale will not open properly in another locale because of the use of different decimal points. In particular if you have a project containing Constant REAL values in it (such as for example this piece of ladder or mnemonic: ">F D200 +0.1") then this project may not be compatible among language versions. What happens is that apparently the Spanish version stores the constant as 0,1 and the English version as 0.1, so they can not be understood when opened back in the wrong language. This is completely unacceptable because binary project files are supposed to be compatible among language versions, as they are for *all* other software packages, even if decimal points end to be displayed differently depending on the language. This of course does not happen with excel or any other software. Excel files are excel files, period. You can open them in Spanish, English, Croatian (just to say) or whatever, you may not be able to read the meaning of some text the creator has placed in it it, but the file will open correctly and the numbers will show properly. That's a BIG issue of CX-Programmer I think.

Skortier, Thanks for your reply, but InduSoft still requires a PC serving Web pages. In reality we have several sites that need to be monitored. We do not have PCs on our sites (and we prefer not having to put a PC on them). The sites are several autonomous mini hydro plants, which only have a OMRON CJ1 plc and a small HMI screen. We don't even have a DSL connection in all of them, so we have to use GPRS routers to access to some remotely, some of them aren't either completely safe locations... This is why I find the ScadaMobile solution a perfect fit for our case. I contacted to the manufacturer and they claim that, unless other solutions, their app connects *directly* with PLCs using PLC communication protocols, so no more infrastructure is needed. This is IMO a 'key' difference for what we need and intend to do, and this is why I like it. On the other hand, do you know if with the InduSoft solution we could setup a 'central' computer in a safe place, which is able to contact to the end sites (again without PCs on them) so then the iPhone can reach this central place through web? Thanks.

Yes, this is the remaining option that we have. The process has a a small HMI terminal which does not support web services, but it is certainly an option to upgrade it for a newer one. However I don't think that NQ terminals support web, though I am sure NS series do. I will look into that too. Thanks.

Hi, I've been doing omron plc programming for years on the Spanish Version of Everything. Just recently I had to change the language format settings of windows to English. Just for those of you that don't know what the effect of it is I can mention that the most noticeable changes are decimal points ('.' for English and ',' for Spanish) and csv files delimiters ( ',' for English and ';' for Spanish). Now, the problem is when I try the usual trick of copy&paste between CX-Programmer and Excel for BOOL symbols in the CIO area. Since the English format uses '.' as decimal point, when a symbol address in the CIO area is copied into Excel it is interpreted a number. Thus, the address 200.10 becomes 200.1 in Excel and therefore it is interpreted back to 200.01 when copied and pasted back to CX-Programmer. This does not happen for the Spanish format because Excel does not try to understand 200.10 as a number so it leaves it unchanged as text and pasting it back to CX-Programmer goes as expected. I know that once a symbol is pasted into Excel I can reformat its address to contain two decimal characters, but this seems (sort of) odd after having programmed for years without having to change anything for that copying and pasting worked in both directions. Is what I describe the usual behavior when English is used? I mean do you always have to make adjustments to an Excel file copied from Cx-Programming in order to properly paste it back to Cx-Programmer or am I missing something? Thanks,

Thank you for your replies. I looked at InduSoft and I think it will not work on an iPhone because it needs activeX, which the phone does not support. On the other hand I guess it needs a dedicated computer on the PLC site acting as a server, which I don't want to add. I just have a CJ1 omron PLC which I want to access through the mobile phone network, in the most direct way if possible. (It is a mini hydro plant). I looked again at ScadaMobile and it seems to do it all, no nothing between the phone and the PLC, except probably an ADSL or GPRS router. The interface is of a native app so it does not go through a WEB server either. They provide a link to a Google Group in their web site and they say it will be released next month. I may give it a try when it is released if I don't find anything else in the mean time. More suggestions are appreciated though.

I need to monitor a small process remotely, and I want to use an iPhone. Googling it I came across an app called ScadaMobile (http://www.sweetwilliamautomation.com) that seems to do all I need, but apparently it is not available yet. Do you know of other available or similar iPhone apps for that purpose?. I don't need anything over complicated, just a simple way to monitor some DM over a mobile network. Sorry I also posted this in the Cx-programmer thread, cause I couldn't figure out what was the best place. Thank you in advance for any reply.

I need to monitor a small process remotely, and I want to use an iPhone. Googling it I came across an app called ScadaMobile (http://www.sweetwilliamautomation.com) that seems to do all I need, but apparently it is not available yet. Do you know of other available or similar iPhone apps for that purpose?. I don't need anything over complicated, just a simple way to monitor some DM over a mobile network. Thank you in advance.