RSLinx and MS Access

[dhinch63 1]

I am having such a hard time trying to bring PLC info from the floor to a MS access database. I want to record cycle time between parts and log the time and date. How do I do this, I am stumped. Can someone give me a step by step. I have all the right software and equipment ie: RS Linx gateway, Windows 2003 server, RS Bizware, RS View32, I installed a PLC Gateway so all my processors connect, I can see them and make changes, but I need to get production data from the floor to the database. I need help bad.

[BobLfoot 302]

In the mrplc downloads section you'll find two examples of VBA code where I used Excel to read and write PLC data thru rslinx. I suggest you study the rslinx dde help files and those example first. Access is very similiar, but if I am not mistaken you'll use the RSlinx OCX dropped into an access form and then code it in VBA. Given you're looking at multiple PLCs and a database for storage, I alkso recommend you learn the OPC method not the DDE one. The performance is better, but the overhead and learning is more as well.

[bikerdude 0]

Greetings, Most people would use the W2003 Server platform to serve up a SQL database not an Access database. You should be able to do it either way, performance of the database after collecting several hundred megabytes of data will be the penalty. The data piles up very quickly and it must be backed up routinely. RSBizware usually comes with an app named "RSSQL". This app can be setup to manage the connections/transactions between RSLinx (PLC addresses) & the database tables. There are many,many,many things to setup/manage install for a sucessful program. This endeavor is not really suited for a forum like this. It would likely take a experienced engineer most of the day to set up this from scratch. There are help files & examples on the discs of course if your determined. The reports that will be made from the data is another few days work. I have one of these running at my plant. I just maintain the monster. I wouldn't even think about starting one from scratch by myself. Rockwell has engineereing staff that will come to your plant & get things rolling for a few thousand dollars. Worth the cost in my book. BD