Will LabVIEW interface with PLCs an if so how?

[aeastet]

You can talk to a PLC using LabVIEW. It would depend on a lot of things like what PLC you are trying to talk to, if you want to code the software. LabVIEW has some drives for PLC's already in thier toolbox. There are other companies that you can purchase VI's to talk to different companies PLS's our you can figure it out on your own. We do serial or serial to usb to talk to our Mitsubitshi PLCs. We developed the drivers by packet sniffing and wrighting the code to match. Reverse engineering. That is the hard way. So it really depends on what you are looking to do. The tool kit from LabVIEW is not free as far as I know.

[Amanda Crosswell]

I am useing GEPac RX3i.  I am building a SCADA lab and I want to use LabVIEW to simulate a flow loop and have the PLC control it.  So this is possible with drivers that labVIEW already has?

[aeastet]

Here are some links to articles I found. Mostly for Allen Bradley stuff.

http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/333FEDA5B4255F72862575B80018C91F

http://www.edasce.com/uploads/media/allenbradleydfi.pdf

http://decibel.ni.com/content/docs/DOC-4065

http://decibel.ni.com/content/docs/DOC-5467

http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/FF5A2B77E6F12BF04825717300086F4C

Hope some of them help.

[aeastet]

I did a search for GE Fanuc and got all of these.

http://search.ni.com/nisearch/app/main/p/bot/no/ap/global/lang/en/pg/3/q/%20%09GE%20Fanuc

I really do not have much experience with GE Fanuc equipment. I hope this helps.

[aeastet]

Found this discussion

http://forums.ni.com/ni/board/message?board.id=170&thread.id=5685

[Amanda Crosswell]

I have some more specific information that might help you help me.  We communicate using modbus TCP and modbus seriel.  Does LabVIEW already have this set up? 

Thank you for your help

[aeastet · Accepted solution]

I found this which is an Intro to Mobus. I am not sure if you are just looking for a place to start or if you have a more specific question.

http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/tut/p/id/7675

It seems to have everything listed to get you started.