Can someone suggest some good PC based PLC software and hardware?

[dfowler]

We are pressurizing one side of a garage door and need to measure deflection vs. pressure over a time constant. I have (1) pressure transducer and (8) deflection sensors all of which output 4-20mA signals. All I really want to do is record the deflection, pressure, and time all on one graph. Can someone suggest an easy way for me to accomplish this? I have seen analog input cards and think I've seen software that would integrate with Excell. This is probably all that I need, but I am just not sure. Thanks for any help.

Davey

 

[djs]

Hello;
There are various companies that maket cards that fit into a PC. National Instruments is one

http://www.ni.com

 

[9984]

Hi, I would suggest that you use a data logger, yogokawa have a few good models, if you have a PC and the software then you can go real time or record and analyse later.
It it dependent on your budget, but there are many way to achieve what you want.
Regards.

 

[nbucska]

you could breadboard a simple circuit to interface to
the parallel port and use your PC

<nbucska@pcperipherals.com>

 

[HCBFlash]

If you've got other uses for a decent PLC you might want to use one, but a datalogger is a tool made for tasks such as you're describing. Almost all of them have PC interfaces and Windows or MS Dos based software either as part of the package or readily available.

If you want to contol the pressure(s) and/or other factors you may in fact want a PLC or a PC based controller.

I just took a look around the web (to keep current on some stuff I've used) and would recommend that you check out entivity.com and automationdirect.com