Moving big amount of data from PLC to MySql DB

I need to move a huge amount of process data from a Siemens S7 300 PLC into a MySql database and than display these values as a graph in Ignition.

The details:

I have a Siemens S7 PLC with a cycle time of approximately 3ms.
The PLC monitors 4 process variables and stores the data in REAL format (4 byte) in 4 data blocks in the PLC.
The process takes 12 seconds, after the process is complete each of the 4 data blocks contains approximately 4000 double-words of data.
It takes about 40 seconds before the next process starts.

I was thinking about block transaction groups but I would need to create 4000 OPC tags per group and Ignition doesn’t do OPC browsing for Siemens PLC.

Are transaction groups the only way to accomplish this task or are there other options like scripting etc.? Or does someone know a good way to create all these tags?

Thanks,
Juergen

1 Like

So I had a similar tag creation issue with a Schneider Electric PLC and in the end I created 4 test tags to confirm I was communicating with and polling each data type correctly. For me that meant I created a Boolean tag, an Integer, an Unsigned Integer, and a Real. Then I did a CSV export of those 4 tags and used them as a template to rapidly create my tag database using a CSV export of the PLC variables.

Once the CSV is put together just re-import it back into Ignition. The only downside is the CSV doesn’t offer full access to the various tag extensions (such as alarming).

Alternatively, you might be able to do something with scripting and the system.tag.addTag() function