Excel link with office 2010

[can]

Hi. I had used excel link with excel 2003 with no problem. However, when I switched to excel 2010, I encountered a problem. When I open an excel file with name aaa.xls and put aaa.xls in the open excel file name, there is an error. When I open an excel file book 1.xls, it will auto open a new workbook book 2.xls and run with no issue. Any idea how to make it use a determined workbook?

[support]

You must put the file inside the MS Excel's default folder so that Excel can find an open it.

Note that ExcelLink does not access the Windows folder directly. ExcelLink only send a command to the Excel spreadsheet tell it to open a file with a given file name but it does not specify the folder location. So the file must reside in the default folder.

[can]

Hi. Got it sorted out. Thanks. Another question. Can I run a first scan to get date and time from TL server on my MD888 whenever it is powered up?

[support]

Yes, you can get the time from TLServer or even from the Internet NIST time server if the PLC is connected to the LAN.

There are examples to sync time with TLServer:

C:\TRiLOGI\TL6\usr\samples\FileService_Modem\SynchronizeRTC.PC6

You can also find examples to sync time with Internet time server at:

C:\TRiLOGI\TL6\usr\samples\Ethernet\NIST_TimeServer by Gary Dickinson.PC6

[can]

Hi. By using Excel link, can excel worksheet be updated only when dm[1] change and not by the constant checking?

[support]

Do you mean the DM[1] is being changed from within the PLC?

ExcelLink will not know the DM[1] readings unless it checks with the PLC. What your propose would require the PLC to open a connection to the ExcelLink or Excel spreadsheet. But ExcelLink currently does support incoming connection from the PLC, and we are not aware if MS Excel has such a capability.

One possible way I can think of is for the PLC to write to a data file on a PC running TLServer when it's DM[1] data has changed.  The Excel spreadsheet may via its macro program check for the presence of this data file and when the file appears it knows that the data has changed and it can read the data off the data file and then delete the file so that the PLC could create the file again the next time DM[1] is changed. This way Excel spreadsheet only checks for the presence of data file in its local hard disk.

[can]

Hi. I think I have an excel macro problem. I want to capture dm[20] to dm[30] when dm[1] = 1. I'm using excel link to grab data every 1 second. When dm[1] =1, dm[20] to dm[30] is not being copied from their original dm cell to another cell. Any idea how to do it?

[support]

Are you reporting an issue with ExcelLink not populating the Excel spreadsheet, or are you inquiring about how to write the Excel macro to copy the content of some cells to another location when the DM[1] becomes a "1"?

[can]

Hi Guys. Any idea how to write an excel macro that will copy cell a1 to cell b1, a2, to b2, a3 to b3, when cell a3 = 1? Thinking of using Excel Link to read dm[1], dm[2] and dm[3] every second into cell a1, a2, a3 of excel.

[support]

You can download an Excel spreadsheet with macro that copies data from some cells to another:

http://www.triplc.com/appnotes_excellink.htm

See if you can modify the macro to suit your purpose.

[can]

Hi. Any way to have code inside excel to open both tp server and excel link? Or any way to hide all the programs and open only excel to link with Plc? Too many windows look too unprofessional