Low-cost Supervisory Control & Data Acquisition package.
Available form Audon Electronics is the recently released
DAQFactory 5 low-cost Supervisory Control and Data
Acquisition package which now boasts even more
functionality including PID loops, Alarms and MODBUS support.
DAQFactory provides all the tools needed to acquire data from your
process, log it, share it on a network, display it on the screen, graph it,
analyse it, and automate your project. All of this can be done quickly
without programming, letting you concentrate on your keeping your
processes running or acquiring data. With Release 5, DAQFactory
now offers new on-screen components, Alarm capability and PID loop
control, new scripting sequences and a connectivity pack that allows
DAQFactory to talk with a wide range of additional MODBUS devices
and PLC's.
Data channels are simple to configure and the channel setup page
includes a graph and table of the data and allows you to set outputs
without creating any screens; this is useful for quickly testing your
hardware. The channel view also has room for any notes you may
want to keep about a channel. Once you have created some channels,
you can save your data to disk in both ASCII and binary files formats,
or to an ODBC compliant database. DAQFactory provides a significant
amount of data processing and analysis tools to convert your data into
something useful. Since DAQFactory integrates the data analysis with
the data acquisition and data display, you can perform your data analysis
on your data as you are taking it.
DAQFactory allows you to design an unlimited number of user screens
to display your data and control your system in just the way you want.
Unlike most other data acquisition software packages, the applications
you develop in DAQFactory do not require compilation. You can design
your screens, add control loops, tweak logging, or edit your channels
while you are taking data. There is no need to stop your process and
recompile. There are 40 screen components that you can use to display
your data in various formats, such as charts, bar graphs, meters etc.
If you are looking to create interactive diagrams of your process,
DAQFactory includes a 3800 industrial image library of everything
from pumps and motors, to buildings and cars, to standard symbols.
All these images can be animated, rotated, have their colour changed,
or move around the screen to best depict the state of your system.
DAQFactory includes a built-in web-server, so your user screens can
be viewed and modified by any network connected PC through a web
browser.
For maximum flexibility DAQFactory also includes a complete multitasking
scripting language called Sequences. Sequences are basically a data
acquisition programming language, allowing you to interact
programmatically with most of DAQFactory tools. Sequences can be
used for all sorts of tasks. They can be as simple as setting a few
output values to a preset state, to complex control loops. DAQFactory
Release 5 now includes PID control loops. You can create as many
PID loops as you need and eliminate the need for expensive hardware
controllers. Like most of the DAQFactory tools, setting up a PID loop
is as simple as filling in a few values in a dialogue box with the desired
parameters. If you need help determining the P, I and D parameters,
DAQFactory can autotune them for you too!
DAQFactory Alarms allows you to watch for different events that may
occur within your system and flag them. Unlike other SCADA software
which only allows you to monitor for a single parameter going above
or below one or two threshold points, DAQFactory allows you to create
an alarm that watches for multiple conditions to occur. DAQFactory
can for example alarm when the temperature gets above 300°C AND
the pressure is above 100psi. When an alarm does occur, the alarm
is logged to disk and displayed in a table. The alarm remains displayed
in the table until you acknowledge that you have seen the alarm. You can
also have DAQFactory play a sound, email you, or perform any automated
task when the alarm event occurs.
DAQFactory has drivers for many well know data acquisition and control
hardware in addition to Audon's own range of USB and PCI hardware.
There is also a generic serial device driver and DAQFactory supports
DDE and OPC so it can communicate with virtually any piece of hardware.
New drivers can be added upon request free of charge. Also, new to
Release 5, is a MODBUS connectivity pack which allows DAQFactory
to communicate with any MODBUS device such as PLC's RTU's and
temperature controllers.
Pricing is very competitive with four DAQFactory versions for every budget.
The feature-limited "Lite" version with 32 I/O is only £119 while the full
version is only £499.
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June 2004
