[AccessD] Web based Data Acquisition Application.

DWUTKA at marlow.com DWUTKA at marlow.com
Fri Feb 25 19:14:17 CST 2005


Ah, yeah, thought I should have gone into more detail.  I didn't write
something that takes data from test equipment.  I wrote a system that puts
data into a database.  Sounds simple, but it's not.  Like I said, most of
the developers I've met, that work on test equipment software, don't know
the first thing about databases, and what is usually produced is a wonderful
test system, with a horrible data system.  I built the data system for them.
The system is generic, in other words, it should be able to handle ANY test
data.  The report portion, is going to be the real tie in.  It will allow
'end users' of the data, to pull live data, archived data, and will even do
company wide data pulls.  (Once the system is finished and tested on this
one machine, we are going to start converting all of our test equipment to
it.  Each system will have different operating software, but the data will
be dumped into the same system (well, copies of the same system), and there
will be a central 'storage' of all test data, that will allow someone to
track things through all levels of testing.

Does that make sense?

Drew

-----Original Message-----
From: Dan Waters [mailto:dwaters at usinternet.com]
Sent: Friday, February 25, 2005 6:55 PM
To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving'
Subject: RE: [AccessD] Web based Data Acquisition Application.


Drew,

My thought is that what is marketable is your ability to develop a data
acquisition package.  You've got experience on two different machines now,
and these were only the first two that you tried.  I am (was?) a Quality
Engineer in a manufacturing environment, and I know that there are many
different types of measuring equipment.  And, I've been a Design Engineer,
and I know that most prototype testing software is also custom.  

So, your product is YOU!  

Best of luck!

Dan Waters
ProMation Systems

-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of DWUTKA at marlow.com
Sent: Friday, February 25, 2005 5:20 PM
To: AccessD at databaseadvisors.com
Subject: [AccessD] Web based Data Acquisition Application.

Okay, this isn't a technical question, it's more like a marketing one.  My
company is a manufacturing company, which has several 'test machines' which
are basically computers hooked up (through engineering cards) to test
equipment.  Most of these systems have custom built 'test software'.  I've
been here for five years, and I have yet to find the software engineer who
actually knows his left from his right in a database.  The databases they
are dumping data into are horribly designed.  For example, we have a few 'EZ
Testers', which dump their data into one database, in fact, ONE TABLE in
that database.  This table has over a hundred fields.  Each product that is
tested, and each test, use only certain fields, so there is a lot of wasted
space, and even worse, the searching of this database is a virtual
nightmare.  A few years ago, we bought a CMM machine, it's a visual
inspection machine (pretty slick, measures things with a digital camera).
It came with it's own program, which has a GUI that 'writes' QVScript (which
is essentially VB Script, just with it's own object model, and a few other
quirks.  It has no default data capture system (other then to the screen),
so I was asked to capture the data.  I wrote a very specialized .dll, that
QVBasic could use to dump it's data into an Access database.  Worked fine.
They only needed two types of 'data dumps', so I wrote two versions of the
.dll.  Quick, fast, took me no more then an hour or two to whip up the
.dll's.

Now a few months ago, we bought a second CMM.  This one was going to test a
lot more then 2 different things, so it needed to be flexible.  I also
figured that since this was going to be my second 'test machine' database, I
figured I might as well prepare for the future, and create a completely
generic data acquisition system.  Which I did, sort of.  I have the data
acquisition part done, but haven't completed the reporting capability.  In a
month or so, I will finally be able to start actually developing again
(right now, I'm too busy being a Network Admin, and PC tech! LOL).  My first
project is going to be to finish the data acquisition program.  So here's my
question.  Does anyone know if this kind of thing would have a market for
it, and if so, are their competing products, and what do they cost?

Drew
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