VB.net to GE 90-30, SIEMENS 300

[lesliemcg]

HI ALL, HAS ANYONE EVER HAD ANY LUCK TO SET UP COMMS FOR VISUAL BASIC .NET AND GE FANUC PLC'S OR SIEMENS 300.
I AM HOPING TO SET UP A PAGE WITH VB TO SEE REGISTER VALUES ETC BUT HAVENT A SCOOBIE HOW TO GET HANDSHAKING
ANY IDEAS
THANKS

 

[jacekd]

As Siemens S7-300 is concerned I'd go for SimaticNet and make a use of its OPC Server (but you need also appropriate hardware).
Give description of your hardware then I could be more of help.

 

[lesliemcg]

thanks for your reply jacekd, i'm still putting the project together so when i know the exact spec, i'll let you know the hardware
thanks again
lesliemcg

 

[tomatge]

GE Fanuc supply a programmers toolkit, allowing interfaces to be developed on various operating systems (including Windows). This is for ethernet TCP/IP interfaces.

Alternatively, you can produce serial protocol interfaces, for example Modbus.

However, a word of caution. Either way will require some fairly serious programming effort to develop what you require. Writing an interface from scratch is no mean task. You would probably be better of purchasing one of the many small SCADA packages (Factorylink, Citect etc.) that offer connnectivity to a range of PLC products. I'm pretty sure both the above can connect to GE Fanuc and Siemens, and the cost will not be excessive for a small number of variables.

 

[lesliemcg]

thanks for your input tomatge
a good point, i already have GE-FANUC cimplicity 50 point in the workplace but to network it around the factory i had to use DDE and export to excell for the tags to be seen by other PC users. i was just hoping for another system to do this by myself
cheers
lesliemcg