Hi,

I have few very simple short questions about the capabilities of Proview and hardware suggestions, if someone could help me out?

1. Does the Proview PLC editor just have the ability to program pc based and field io type devices or can it program general plcs as well? If so, would the program still be executed from the PC?
2. Any recommendations for affordable hardware with digital, analog, and thermocouple capabilities that can be used with proview?

Hello cdahl
Here are my answers (from my experience) to your questions:
You can not use Proview as universal Editor (IDE) to program PLC's and any fieldbus devices.
Proview ist a development environnement and runtime system for professional process control.
I guess the closest description is like this: \"Proview is a linux based and network distributed development environnement, a powerful Soft-PLC, which runs on PC-based hardware and a SCADA system. All components work perfectly together and has a revolutionary object orientated design concept\" You need to understand the object orientated approach, which is not comparable with other common PLC concepts. That is often a reason why it is hardly to understand by beginners and also a reason for critism. But as soon you begin to understand you can experience a lot of advantages.
It depends always on your needs. Does your I/O need to be industrial proof? Is it just for a small homeautomation project? Anyway search the net for modbus tcp coupler. They are not so expensive and usually fulfill the general needs in response time and universatility. If you are searching a really low cost solution you can find some suggestions in this forum.

peter

Thanks for your help peter.

My main goal is to get familiar using proview (really any pc based control system, but proview seems the most intriguing and it is free). I have a couple projects in mind down the road, but I don't want to invest in the io until I have a good handle on its basic operation since I have very little experience with pc control (done a few basic labview stuff), only some experience with PLC and process control all together (only ladder logic,PID tuning, and transmitters/sensors), and only know C programming language.

I have done some research since you last posted, also (lucky for me) it looks like there is know support for some new very low cost products (vellemann/arduino). I think am going to give the vellemann K8055 or VM110 a try. We will see how that goes! I don't know what I am getting myself into!

I was wondering if anybody has thought about writing drivers or adding support for the Measurement computing USB-1208 data aquisition system. I have used this product for data aquisition with its out of the box software and it seems to work well. Since it has plentiful io (especiallly more analog inputs than what most other people seem to be putting out) for very cheap, I thought it might be worth looking at....

Thanks for your help peter.

My main goal is to get familiar using proview (really any pc based control system, but proview seems the most intriguing and it is free). I have a couple projects in mind down the road, but I don't want to invest in the io until I have a good handle on its basic operation since I have very little experience with pc control (done a few basic labview stuff), only some experience with PLC and process control all together (only ladder logic,PID tuning, and transmitters/sensors), and only know C programming language.

I have done some research since you last posted, also (lucky for me) it looks like there is know support for some new very low cost products (vellemann/arduino). I think am going to give the vellemann K8055 or VM110 a try. We will see how that goes! I don't know what I am getting myself into!

I was wondering if anybody has thought about writing drivers or adding support for the Measurement computing USB-1208 data aquisition system. I have used this product for data aquisition with its out of the box software and it seems to work well. Since it has plentiful io (especiallly more analog inputs than what most other people seem to be putting out) for very cheap, I thought it might be worth looking at....

Hi Cdahl,

I have tested the k8055 and the Arduino.
Search on the forum and you will find enough information to give it a try...

/Marc