WinPLC's w/OPC Data Collection

[rbelknap]

I have 9 WinPLC's that are all independent of each other and would like to collect data from them.

I've tried several iterations of this several years ago, with varying reults of success and failure, most failure which is why I'm going to re-visit.

My first tries were a single vb6 app, and then vb.net that would collect data from all of the machines, but whenever one of the machines would be turned off for maintenance the app would crash and be out for days.  We als ohad several instances where a WinPLC or 2 would seem to "fall off" the network and stop "talking," which would also eventually crash the app.

My next iteration was to try the DataWorx product that AD sells.  We bought the pro version so that we could go directly to a database, but had nothing but issues with it also.  It would collect fine for, sometimes, months at a time, but then give me some weird error and not be able to recover without a re-boot of the PC and sometimes the WinPLC.  On occasion it stops the server portion for no apparent reason.

I'm just starting to contemplate my next iteration and hope to make something bullet proof.  My thoughts surround the fact that the app would crash when one machine was turned off.  Therefore, I'm thinking that a separate app for each machine would be required.  I'm thinking it could actually be instances of the same app and read the data to be collected and any other pertinent info form a database or ini file.  My thoughts for recovering from the crashes, assuming I can't prevent it, is to have a "Big Bother" app that keeps track of the collection applications and will restart them if they crash.

I guess I'm looking for anyone that has had some success in doing anything similar to this.  I'll likely be using VB.net 2005. 

Also, the new forum looks good.  It's the first visit.  A Little disheartening to learn the WinLC is "Stuck" where its at, but it does work very well.  Just need to get data out of that little sucker!


Thanks for any suggestions you may have.

Rich B.

[MikeS]

Are these WinPLC's running the Entivity (Thinkn'Do) runtime? or are they running a custom Visual C/C++ application?

[rbelknap]

Are these WinPLC's running the Entivity (Thinkn'Do) runtime? or are they running a custom Visual C/C++ application?

They are Running ThinknDo Live 5.4.

[erDesign]

I also am looking to writing a .NET app to talk with WinPLC's using Live (we are running version 5.7). We have a successful app written by third party to talk with Think N Do Live runtime on a PC. I am looking to modify it to talk with the CE OPC driver. I haven't figured out yet how to change from using the OPC server to the CE OPC server. Any info you have would be helpful.
RJ