I need advice on SCADA/DAQ options for my company. We are a small (aerospace) startup with app 30 engineers at present and plans to hire many more in 2022+. My background, I am an EE with Math/CS graduate school education, 30 years of industry experience working for various companies both as an FTE and as a consultant/contractor (NI Alliance partner). I have been in a management role for the last several years which I thought would lead to early retirement. As it turns out I'm not well suited to being put out to pasture -not just yet anyway. I had no intention of ever being an FTE again, but never say never is probably a good mantra. I am enjoying the energy, excitement and opportunity to help define and implement our data acquisition and control systems. To that end, I am seeking advice and opinions on using NI SW and HW, specifically LabVIEW licensing e.g. packages (full, professional), subscription vs perpetual, PXI vs cRIO vs cDAQ. In the past as an Alliance Partner I had access to most/all of NI's software. We used LabVIEW/RT/FPGA & TestStand extensively in designing and building rack based functional/end of line testers, embedded controllers and laboratory SCADA systems. In the past few years NI has changed considerably. While I don't necessarily agree with all of the changes -I do understand the motivation. Case in point I never used NGX for a commercial project, we stuck with traditional LV (all the way from 3.x to 2019). My experience with NXG is limited but the little I saw I really liked. I'm saddened to see it die. I've always been a little leery of having a single source solution e.g. LabVIEW but the advantages seemed to out weight my concerns. I've read many posts (on LAVA, NI, Reedit, etc.) with interest regarding NIs (and LVs) future. I agree with most of them. But back to my question,
Currently we are using,
An inhouse developed SCADA application written in LV 2020
various (cDAQ) chassis and modules (from NI and UEI)
LabVIEW is installed and running on a server connected to the HW item 2 above via a fiber based high speed dedicated link appx 200m away
writing data to flat files with 3rd party data analysis/visualization packages
My current thoughts are to ( I have an aggressive schedule)
refactor/cleanup existing LV code (using LV2021)
buy LabVIEW 2021 license subscription(s)
use the VLA/VLM (start with 5 seats and add more as needed)
use PXI as the primary HW (as opposed to cRIO/cDAQ)
use external controller (PC) as opposed to an embedded one (contained in the PXI chassis)
build the next DAQ system using a 19" EIA rack with PXI chassis and local controller (PC), use cRIO where needed
build WEB based HMI for remote monitoring and control
use TDMS and/or SQL database
BTW, there is a clear negative perception of NI/LV here. Most of the engineers are young (30ish) and pretty convinced Python is the sh*t. I'm not opposed to using text based languages (where appropriate). I still think LV has some advantages, e.g. development time, in this environment/use case. Given my recent experiences (e.g. horrible support, not returning calls/emails, access problems) and perhaps most damning of all, I've lost faith/don't trust them. If I didn't have a 30 year relationship with them, I'd tell them to f-off and vote with my feet.
