Using DDE with Enviromon

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tbltbl
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Joined: Thu Apr 26, 2012 1:05 pm

Using DDE with Enviromon

Post by tbltbl »

Having posted probably incorrectly under Hardware, I thought that I would add the results of my tests to this thread.I enclose my Excel file with the following code.

Using the command/link =EMW|Current!Value just returns #N/A in Excel. Under further investigation the following VBA code gives a bit more information.

Sub GetDDEdata()
app$ = "EMW"
topic$ = "Current"
Item$ = "Value"

ChanNum = Application.DDEInitiate(app:="EMW32", topic:="Current")
DataArray = Application.DDERequest(ChanNum, Item$)
Res1 = DataArray(1)
Application.DDETerminate ChanNum
'The elements of DataArray should contain the data returned from EMW.
End Sub

Even if emw32.exe (Environmon) IS running, the DDEInitiate command returns "Start application EMW32.exe ?" and if one says YES then an error message is produced saying that the program or one of the program's components is damaged. If the program name is changed to something that does not exist, then the error remains the same. Is it possible that the DDE name of Enviromon is not EWM in the latest versions of the software ?
Attachments
DDE test.xls
(25 KiB) Downloaded 1030 times

ziko
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Re: Using DDE with Enviromon

Post by ziko »

I can't seem to open your file, 5.21.5 doesn't seem to work with DDEs, however 5.16.2 works. If you wanted to try it on 5.16.2 you will have to do a firmware update (to an older version) using the logload programme, for instructions on how to do this please follow the following link:

http://www.picotech.com/support/topic4038.html

Download the attatchment, ignore the rest of the forum post, its just the attatchement that matters.

Kind regards
Ziko

Technical Specialist

tbltbl
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Re: Using DDE with Enviromon

Post by tbltbl »

Thanks for your reply Ziko, but I was hoping for a better response from Pico. You can hardly expect your customers to downgrade their software , which they have just upgraded to get the extra functionality, just because someone has forgotton to check that DDE works before compiling the new version. The Enviromon unit is a fantastic piece of kit, and if it worked as described in the accompanying manual, could do so much more using DDE.
I have just downloaded my Excel file from your site and it runs perfectly. Under Office 2010 you would probably have to change your permissions regarding active code.

Please ask your software people to put this right.

Richard

ziko
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Re: Using DDE with Enviromon

Post by ziko »

Hi Richard,

This is a workaround, I shall feed your request to the software team.

Kind Regards
Ziko

Technical Specialist

tbltbl
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Re: Using DDE with Enviromon

Post by tbltbl »

Thanks Ziko,
we are in a situation where if we cannot get DDE to work with the latest version of the software we will have to replace 3 complete Enviromon systems, as some things that we measure are now happening faster than your software can measure. I'm sure that there is a simple way of increasing the rate of measurement without using DDE but DDE does at least offer a solution which I can control myself.
If you can get the software team to correct this, I will post a working Excel addon for Enviromon which logs at a higher frequency than the current software allows.

Best regards

Richard

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