Hi Ed,
I would recommend you to use LabVIEW DSC instead of Datasocket.
LabVIEW Datalogging and Supervisory Control Module provides the tools
such as HMI Wizard, Tag Configuration Editor to make you more
productive.
Regarding to your question, first of all there is no any dependency
between Server Explorer and your LabVIEW application. Server Explorer
is just a diagnostic tool to monitor OPC Server tags. It is like an
OPC client.
So the answer is yes, you can create your VIs without having PLC to
connect to if you have the list of addresses. You just cannot check
the connections and thus the performance of your application without
the hardware. Make sure that the OPC server is installed on the
Development PC. You can either use Front Panel Datasocket or
Datasocket VIs in your application.
I hope this helps.
Best Regards,
Remzi A.
Applications Eng.
National Instruments
