Phoenixville, PA -- (SBWIRE) -- 08/24/2010 -- The phrase “.NET PLC driver” lead MicroCODE President and CEO, Tim McGuire, to http://www.ingeardrivers.com.

According to McGuire, “The challenges MicroCODE, Inc. faced that caused the initial conversation with INGEAR were based in the fact that existing HMI products from Allen-Bradley, Siemens, and others, are closed systems. If you can’t build your desired user interface with their canned controls you’re basically out of luck.

MicroCODE executives envisioned a very comprehensive Error Proofing system for General Motors that would require five (5) things:

• Complete control for the graphical interface

• Low cost

• High Speed

• Independence from a proprietary controls system

• I/O flexibility

MicroCODE’s unique challenges involved selling the Windows CE solutions with custom Applications as a preferred solution within General Motors.

While MicroCode staff evaluated Allen-Bradley RSView SE, Siemens WinCE HMIs, and some OPC software solutions, the simplicity of building Visual C# .NET applications with INGEAR’s drivers sold the company. The company purchased two (2) INGEAR products:

• NET.LOGIX (XP version) Developer’s License

• NET.LOGIX (CE version) Developer’s License

McGuire discussed the benefits and quantifiable improvements did MicroCODE, Inc. experienced as a result of working with INGEAR commenting, “Proficiency with Windows CE, .NET applications integrated to a controls environment has opened opportunities for our company that were not there before, it has differentiate us from our competitors in this space. The drivers just work, as advertised, and their performance is excellent.”

The INGEAR.NET software from CimQuest is a set of runtime free class libraries that simplify building, developing, and deploying connected systems for manufacturing applications using Visual Basic or Visual Studio .NET. It uses only three primary classes of .NET code:

- one of which manages the PLC,
- one manages the data that are read from or written to that PLC,
- one manages groupings of methods, properties, and events to optimize read/write operations on a collection.

It includes a direct Ethernet communication channel to the PLCs enabling developers to write HMI interfaces to PLC controls or acquiring data from them. No additional third-party components, drivers, APIs or tools, such as OPC Servers, are required. This simple programming model by CimQuest InGear contributes to faster response times and ease of use and ultimately – profitability.

CimQuest INGEAR
http://www.ingeardrivers.com
Chuck Karwoski
plc.net@ingeardrivers.com
Toll Free: 1.866.935.7979 | Telephone: 1.610.935.8282