I am starting a project for a client and want to be able to get data from their Rockwell control systems into a VB.NET program in Visual Studio. The client has Factory Talk Transaction Manager, and other Rockwell software, which we could use to send the data to a database. However, I'd like best to grab the data directly from the PLCs into my program. I've seen websites that mention an OPCAutomation .dll that one can get if a member of OPC Foundation, but these posts were several years old, and it's very expensive to join OPC Foundation. My question is what is the best way to get data from RSLinx into a VB.NET program. Is there an accessible .dll that my client can get through their Rockwell supplier, which I could import into my VB.NET program? Or is there a better way to approach this?
