Indusoft tag limit reached

ganutenator · Mar 8, 2017

reached 1500 tag limit on the indusoft.
Oem can't can't justify the next license level.
Can't barely afford the $700 per machine as it is.
Thinking about making assigning like 500 tags per page and making them dynamic depending on what screen is open, sans alarms and such.

Anyone else ever do this?

Or would my time be better served trying another hmi product?

nhatsen · Mar 8, 2017

Maybe you need clients with a bigger budget.

ganutenator · Mar 9, 2017

nhatsen said:
Maybe you need clients with a bigger budget.

This ****ed me off.

It is for an OEM. His product is already the most expensive on the market.

But it is selling like hotcakes because it is the most reliable.

You don't understand this particular business model.

Not a factory.

Think, sold a 1,000 machines and upgrade license would be $800,000

Archie · Mar 9, 2017

Just a thought.... At 1000+ deployments of the same application, it may be more economical to consider a custom application. Consider an extreme case where your HMI is VERY complex and may cost up to $100,000 to develop. Spread that across 1000 machine and your cost is then $100 per machine. Sell 1000 more machine, then cost then becomes $50 per machine. And no more worries of tag limits and attempted work-arounds.

I would take a more realistic guess and say over half of custom HMIs can be developed for way less than $50k

jawolthuis · Mar 9, 2017

ganutenator said:
Thinking about making assigning like 500 tags per page and making them dynamic depending on what screen is open, sans alarms and such.

Anyone else ever do this?

I use this regularly for normal HMI's. It gives me much more flexibility in the HMI, and I do all of the heavy lifting in the PLC.

sbaum · Mar 9, 2017

You probably have this covered already but I'll toss it out just in case...
If you're using Boolean tags, you can save on the tag count by grouping the tags into a 32bit word and address them in Indusoft as 'TagName->B00'

Phrog30 · Mar 9, 2017

It sounds like you don't understand the business. Why would you pay a license at all on an OEM machine? Develop your own app like archie mentioned. It seems you are an integrator working for an OEM.

ganutenator · Mar 9, 2017

Phrog30 said:
It sounds like you don't understand the business. Why would you pay a license at all on an OEM machine? Develop your own app like archie mentioned. It seems you are an integrator working for an OEM.

sorry, I don't know everything Phrog. Yes, I am an integrator working for an OEM.

ganutenator · Mar 9, 2017

sbaum said:
You probably have this covered already but I'll toss it out just in case...
If you're using Boolean tags, you can save on the tag count by grouping the tags into a 32bit word and address them in Indusoft as 'TagName->B00'

good tip. I just started doing this to reclaim tags. Have i/o as individual boolean so that I can log i/o history. Thinking of getting rid of i/o history and mapping the 128 i/o to 4 ints.

ganutenator · Mar 9, 2017

Archie said:
Just a thought.... At 1000+ deployments of the same application, it may be more economical to consider a custom application. Consider an extreme case where your HMI is VERY complex and may cost up to $100,000 to develop. Spread that across 1000 machine and your cost is then $100 per machine. Sell 1000 more machine, then cost then becomes $50 per machine. And no more worries of tag limits and attempted work-arounds.

I would take a more realistic guess and say over half of custom HMIs can be developed for way less than $50k

I don't know how to do write a custom application. Specifically, the driver, alarms, security, et al.

ganutenator · Mar 9, 2017

jawolthuis said:
I use this regularly for normal HMI's. It gives me much more flexibility in the HMI, and I do all of the heavy lifting in the PLC.

any gotchas i should be aware of?

Ways to make sure the data is loaded before the screen opens?

jawolthuis · Mar 9, 2017

ganutenator said:
any gotchas i should be aware of?

Nothing specifically. I am sure your application is much more involved than what I have done though.

Ways to make sure the data is loaded before the screen opens?

I have no idea how this will work with your HMI application. When working with a hardware HMI, It has not been a problem though.

ganutenator · Mar 9, 2017

I tried to make my question specific, but yes, I am weighing all the options.
1) upgrade license - customer says no
2) re-write in something else (would have to do this in my spare time and there is always the possibility customer could say no and/or I could run into something that made it a worse option)
3) free up tags
a) map bools to int (doesn't work in alarm worksheet)
b) map tags to a string
c) indirect depending on what page is open

I was asking about c, but answers to other options will be taken as advice.

jawolthuis · Mar 9, 2017

What is the maximum number of tags on a single screen?

ganutenator · Mar 9, 2017

I'm pretty sure there isn't a limit except for the project limit of 1500.
As far as my most tag filled screen goes, aprox. 340. But multiple screens can be open at a time, so I would have to fix that first.

Indusoft tag limit reached

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