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WinCC and DDE

Created by: majic at: 11/14/2005 5:50 PM (5 Replies)

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11/14/2005 5:50 PM	Rate (0)
majic Posts: 47 Rating: (0)	Hello, I would like to know if anyone out there has had any joy with using WinCC with the DDE Channel Driver. My problems are: 1) I can find no documentation on the DDE channel driver that ships with WinCC, namely potential problems with names of Tags coming in from DDE. Some of the DDE Tag names include a "#" symbol and other punctuation marks, and I wonder if this could conflict with the Channel Driver's operation. 2) Data from the Tags sent are to an ActiveX control on the .pdl for display, if I have more than 3 of these controls on the screen, the whole system seems to loose it's ability to communicate with the DDE server and no data is shown. 3) When communications do work, not all data is retreived at startup and the display refresh rate is slow. unless only one item on the .pdl is hooked up to the data source and is displaying information. A situation far from the ideal! If anyone else has this problem or similar please let me know. I am hoping that I can show multiple .pdl's on the screen at any one time, with up to 60 ActiveX controls displaying at a time (possibly more). Can WinCC do this, taking it's data from DDE?
majic Posts: 47 Rating: (0)
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11/14/2005 8:08 PM	Rate (0)
Nemo Posts: 3149 Rating: (171)	Hi Majic, instead of DDE you should use OPC, just have a look at the WinCC online help..".Contents >Communication >WindowsDDE" DDE has been often used for Windows95/98 and always been a little instable e.g. with MS Office Applications like word/excel - in my experience With newer Windows versions DDE isn´t fully released/supported by microsoft anymore (as for as I know). Regards, Nemo
Nemo Posts: 3149 Rating: (171)	Last edited by: Nemo at: 11/15/2005 7:48 AM
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11/15/2005 9:44 AM	Rate (0)
majic Posts: 47 Rating: (0)	We are in the process of developing an entirely new HMI system using WinCC and OPC , however, I have been tasked with investigating the use of WinCC as a means to replacing older (non-siemens) HMI's, so that we can offer support for our customers who do not have Siemens S7 PLC's. For example, if a problem occurs with a panel PC that runs our older HMI, we would like to be able to send an engineer in with a Siemens Panel PC running WinCC OS, plug in the cables (btw it's COM port based communication [:P]), turn it on and away it goes. It occurs to me that the fastest way to acheive this goal is to use existing (DDE based) software that organises and processes the COM port data into manageable tags and plug WinCC's DDE Channel driver into it (seeing as it comes with one), hence my question regarding DDE. My issue is with why one piece of software that uses either Suitelink or DDE as a means of communication can utilise the DDE channel reliably (or even Microsoft's own office suite can realiably return information from the DDE Channel) and the WinCC DDE Channel driver apparently can't? i would like to know if there is any information out there with regards to the use of WinCC and DDE or alternatively the creation of WinCC Channel Drivers.
majic Posts: 47 Rating: (0)
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11/15/2005 10:08 AM	Rate (0)
majic Posts: 47 Rating: (0)	Nemo, I've just had a quick look at the documentation for the WinCC DDE Communication Channel, and it's just a single page stating "This is included for backwards compatability" which doesn't really help me. Regards MaJiC
majic Posts: 47 Rating: (0)
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11/15/2005 10:09 AM	Rate (0)
Salma Gold Member Joined: 9/27/2005 Last visit: 11/27/2007 Posts: 1398 Rating: (151)	There is a Channel Development Kit (CDK) option to allow you to program your own drivers. Another alternative may be to use the third party product Omniserver. Omniserver is a communication driver that allows you to program in the protocol used to talk to your device. It can then use either DDE or OPC to pass the data to WinCC. http://www.omnidssi.com WinCC and DDE aren't very compatible with the current version (as you have already found) so I would suggest looking for suitable alternatives. Hopefully one of the above may be of use.

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11/15/2005 10:28 AM	Rate (0)
majic Posts: 47 Rating: (0)	Salma, Thanks for the information, I'm still relatively new to PCS7 and WinCC, your information about the CDK is probably more relevant (as I would only have to re-engineer one WinCC Channel as opposed to three pieces of mature software) and has sparked my quest for the right tools for the job![8)] Many thanks MaJiC
majic Posts: 47 Rating: (0)
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