RFID Reading and then Print and apply Labels

[32Racer]

Looking for some help and advice. My company currently builds and sells packaging machines. The machines bag Garments on Hangers. Basically  it is a machine that puts the plastic bag on  Garments on coat hangers, like when you pick your Dry Cleaning from the Cleaners.  We use a Vision V570 Plc and I use a 3rd party for the programming.  Many of my current customers have there rental linens RFID Tagged and a Database containing the information for the linen. What we are wanting to do is add an RFID Reader on the machine and while the Poly is being pulled over the linen read the RFID Tag and access the customers data base and receive the size of the linen from the Database. After the Bagging Cycle is complete and the linen exits the machine and makes an existing Proximity switch we want to send the data from the database to a Zebra printer/applicator from Weber  Packaging Solutions. Then the linen will slide down to another stop station and when a second proximity switch is made we want to apply the label.. The labeler applicator will be communicating to the Packaging Machine in order to pause the Machine in case of Printer Errors.. My issue is I have no  idea where to start. I do not know how to make a Prox switch trigger the data to be sent to the printer. Can anyone please tell me what would be the simplest way to do this... I would like to design a system that could integrate into all customers databases regardless of there software. I am thinking about using a file exchange program where there data is sent to a shared folder and we just take the data from this shared folder. Then if the customer wants data back showing Status of Labeled Linens we have a folder we send the out data to and they get the out file from this folder... Not sure if any of this is possible or how to go about it.... Open for any and all ideas.. If anyone would like to assist on this project  we would be willing to compensate you for your time... Thanks Chris

[Joe Tauser]

Adding an RFID reader is relatively straightforward.  The V570 has serial ports that can talk to it.  Adding prox switches is also not a problem.

Interfacing with the customer's database will be really, really tricky.  Database is a generic term, like "car".  Each customer has their own database, and you'll have to get security access to it, know what type it is, what tables are in it, what the field names are, and so on. 

This will probably be a  generic solution with a custom program modification for each customer.  You'll probably need to add a UniStream to work with the V570.  The UniStream has much more horsepower in this department.

I would start by gathering specific database information from all the customers that are asking for this feature. 

Joe T.

[32Racer]

The  Database that my customer is using is Microsoft SQL thats hosted in AWS. It can be accessed on network and can be made publicly accessible as well as through public IP. Thanks