Created Date: May 15,2001

Created by: Ron Wilson

I am writing a program to monitor pump stations. I am writing the program using Visual Basic. When I start the program up I am monitoring 3 pumps run positions (On, Off, Auto) and have used "if " statements to tell what position the pumps are in.

Example:

If (pump1 =1) Then

pump1.backcolor = &h0&

pump1.forecolor = &H0&

Very simple code. . .(pump1 = 1) tells whether the bit is true or false in the variable location for "pump1 ". . .

Now my question. . .sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn't. When I start the program up the lights work about 50% of the time but once I change the pumps position with the program up and running it works 100% of the time. I am wondering if there is an initialization for Visual Basic like there is for Excel using the Dsdata Server.

I saw in the Dsdata Server book it used an example with Excel:

Channel = DDEInitiate(cell, row). . . .

Can I do that with Visual Basic or what is going on. . .I am running a DL-250 and can connect with either port. . .r2-232 modem jack or the db15 rs-232, 422. Thanks for your help!!!!

Created Date: May 16,2001

Created by: Ron Wilson

Actually I figured it out. . .Yes I am starting the DDE server before the code runs. . .

What was happening was my program was not initializing the values to my label variables unless something changed, so I wrote a method that I called in "form_load " that would make it retrieve the variables on start up of the app. . .

If anyone has problems then you can email me with and I will send you the code. . .

email: wronald@clemson.edu

Thanks for your help!!! Your code is very useful also to me for some later parts of my program. . .is it ok if I use some of it???

-Ron