Control.com - Nerds in Control

Sir,
I am looking a low cost SCADA Trend software for to monitor machineries down time (Running and stopped time) via Trend chart software. can anyone help me to find the suitable software?

Thanks.
Nijam

Try honeywell SPECVIEW. It has most controllers made by different manufacturers built into its database so you don't have to go thru all the hastle of creating tags. It is simple to use and therefore you can create the entire SCADA system in 1 or 2 days abd be off and running. I call SPECVIEW SCADA for beginners because of the simplicity.

-Steve G.

I agree with Steve. I have been using Specview for 7+ years, and it is easy to set up and quite capable. Specview is a stand alone company, so you don't need to go through Honeywell. Visit http://www.specview.com

Canary Labs, Excel, and Indusoft can give you inexpensive graphs.. all need an OPC server tho.

Cheers from: Jeremy Pollard, CET The Caring Canuckian! www[.]tsuonline.com

Control Design www[.]controldesignmag.com
Manufacturing Automation www[.]automationmag.com

PLCopen North America - plcopenna@tsuonline.com
www[.]plcopen.com

3 Red Pine Court, RR# 2 Shanty Bay, Ontario L0L 2L0
705.739.7155 Cell # 705.725.3579

InduSoft does not rely on OPC. InduSoft supports OPC both as a server server and as clients to communicate with other OPC servers on your plant floor. It does not require, however, that you use OPC.

InduSoft offers nearly 240 communication drivers, which obviates the need for OPC in many cases. OPC is certainly the choice many in the industry--but InduSoft offers other options as well.

As I said a few weeks ago, we start every project in this office offering to do everything in MS Visual Studio. (Sorry Curt; it breaks my heart, too.)

I'll admit that this is a reversal of the opinion I held just a few short years ago, and I certainly don't deny any of the objections to proprietary vs. OSS. I've been monkeying with Linux since release 0.2, and using GCC since way before that, so I'm not new to OSS. In fact, I was failing to compile Linux kernels using GCC on SunOS at least 18 months before I ever saw a computer running MS Windows. So I'm not a dyed in the wool Windows defender.

But the fact of the matter is that any of the canned packages you're going to buy run on MS Windows, so you're going to have that platform as a base unless you roll your own. And if you're going to do anything fancy with the canned package you're probably going to be using a variant of Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) to do the hard work. So, since you're going to be using VBA anyway, just jump straight to VB and and be done with it. It just one fewer layer of stuff to break.

"But I don't know VB," you say. I'm sorry, a hundred years ago not many people understood electricity, either. Times change. You can't seriously call yourself a controls engineer today, yet proclaim you only work on 3-15 PSI signals. The Visual Studio environment is no more complex that the new IEC function block specification.

Michael

--
Michael R. Batchelor

www.ind-info.com

Hi Michael

What actually breaks my heart is that, even with the obstacles that high for using anything but Microsoft, many people still don't think there's a problem. That it's absolutely normal that only one choice is allowed. And that that's a good thing. And they will pay whatever it costs and put up with any amount of grief to conform. Very strange behavior among thinking people. I can't imagine any other commodity that could be sold that way without turning people off immediately and being tossed on the ash heap of history. The only similar phenomena is the Stockholm syndrome. But the Stockholm subjects are held by force and the MS subjects have free will and viable alternatives. What's wrong with this picture? Can you think of any other company that could get away with this?

Regards

cww

Curt,

I tried the Linux route for years and everytime that I starting pushing the limits on Linux I experience lockups or other strange operation. I don't really care for MS Windows but with the release of W2K3R2 I am at least seeing operating times measured in months instead of days.

I don't see Linux being a viable platform for anything except dedicated applications (what happened to the linux plc?). Trying to run it in a multiple user multi-application enviroment especially in a mission critical enviroment is risky at best.

I hope that someday Linux gets stable enough to start using it as a process server because I do look forward to using it and telling MS goodbye.

Mike

In reply to "Mike" (or whoever you are) - Things must be fairly slow on
Slashdot these days if you have to troll the Automation List. You should have
tried this one a couple of years ago though, as Curt Wuollet isn't as easy to
get going anymore as he used to be. I could be wrong about that though and he
might be working up a good head of steam right now. If so, then hat's off to
you if you got him to fall for it.

I won't bother disputing any of your points. They're fairly standard material
- vague ominous claims that could mean anything. The individual phrases look
solid until examined in detail, upon which we find that they're just vapour
with no actual content to dispute. I do like the phrase "multiple user
multi-application enviroment especially in a mission critical enviroment"
though - it's very "enterprisy" sounding.

I do have to congratulate you though on "pushing the limits on Linux". Only a
handfull of people in the world work with the sort of computing hardware
that can do that. I feel honoured to know that one of them reads the
Automation List.

Just so that my own message isn't as completely content free as the one I am
replying to though, I thought I would write a little program that would, if
not "push the limits of Linux", at least push the limits of my own little
computer. The point would be to determine what happens to the apparent
responsiveness of the computer if I load it down.

#include <stdio.h>

int i;
main (){
while (1) {
i=i+1;
}
}

I called it "peg-cpu.c" for obvious reasons. When I compile and run it, "top"
reports that it takes 99.2% of CPU time (running "top" and doing other things
takes up the other 0.8% - there is no idle time left).

What if I run two instances of it simultaneously? Now the first instance is
running at 49.6%, and the second at 48.6% CPU utilisation (these numbers
bounce up and down a bit so they don't match exactly).

So what effect does this have on the rest of the computer? After all, I'm
doing the dreaded "100% CPU usage" that we hear people complaining about when
they have software problems.

Well, I started up the e-mail program after I started running the first
instance of the test program. I'm writing this e-mail while both instances of
this test program are running on the same computer. The menues, mouse, GUI,
etc. are all still quick and responsive. Things might have slowed down a bit,
but its not readily apparent. The only way I can tell that these tasks are
consuming all available CPU time is to look at the "top" statistics. I'm
"pushing" the computer, and it doesn't seem to mind at all.

The conclusion: 100% CPU utilisation should not necessarily cause the computer
to "freeze up" or become unresponsive. If it does, then either there is
something else wrong, or the operating system scheduler is not well designed.

Here's another version, this time in "bash":

#!/bin/bash
while true ; do
echo "Make work."
done

This has much the same effect (or lack of it), although in this case the CPU
utilisation is split between the process running the bash script and the
console which is displaying it.

For the sake of reference, the CPU used in this test is: "AMD Athlon(tm) 64
Processor 3200+". The operating system is : "Linux version 2.6.12-12mdk", and
is installed as the 64 bit version.

Does anyone have any other ideas of how to "push" a computer?

One of the things that will hose things up is if you have a small amount of memory so you are swapping and you run several instances of bonnie. Of course, heavy swapping all by itself is a big slowdown. Trying to flood a T1 with packets can get interesting also depending on how good the driver is. But, you're right, the Linux scheduler has been getting really great results with most loads. And you can choose another for the others.

Reference: K6/450 with 128mb of ram running a 2.2 kernel.
and an Athlon 1800 with 256 mb ram running fedora 5.

Regards

cww

Hi Mike

That's really strange since critical multiuser, multiapplication environments are where Linux has been strongest, what with web farms, the Google engine, airport systems, the US mail, etc. Indeed one is reminded of the recent IBM ad "Where did all the servers go?" where they replace a roomful of Windows servers with an IBM Linux box of some sort. It might be the applications, I have had some strangeness with Windows apps converted to Linux. IBMs Top Page comes to mind. It was obsessed with DOS pathnames on a Linux box, which makes no sense at all. The new huge printing press they bought at work will be Linux and Siemens, in what mix I am not sure. The telephone people are big fans lately as well. Still there are exceptions to every rule I suppose. As for stability, I did lose the uptimes on both my home boxes this summer due to a two hour power outage but both were in the hundreds of days. I am curious, what applications were you trying to use?

Regards

cww

http://www.dataq.com/index.html

Hi,

visit http://www.dsxp.com, you can find alternative solution to make Trend chart.

Tirez

Dear Nijam,

Try P-CIM SCADA software. It is an easy to use software with more than 150 communication drivers.

Have a look at: http://www.afcon-inc.com

In my opion the best LOW COST SCADA package available is PRODIGY. Contact http://www.tascomp.com

try at www.arsoft-int.com , hope this helps you
best

Maybe the Trend ActiveX is a very good solution. Also it can help you save your money. You can find a pretty powerful Trend ActiveX at http://www.cstsoft.com

Hi, boss,

You can go for better HMI of Allen-Bradley. It can be used easily with logic, or better go with Cimplicity, or NI SCADA.