Basic HMI question

We recently took ownership of the water treatment portion of our plant. The plant uses a SLC 5/03 which communicates with a local PV550, but nearly all control functions are accessed through one of two HMIs. The HMIs are running Wonderware on some old WFW 3.11 computers. They communicate through the PC's RS 232 ports to the DH485 "KF3" boxes, one for each PC.

The powers that be have decided that we require some additional controls and indications. Unfortunately, we do not have the development license for the Wonderware, so I am pushing for a possible upgrade.

I would like some suggestions to possibly point me in the right direction. I would like to replace the PC's with off the shelf systems and would like to set up a basic HMI. Ease of setup would be preferable as I am not highly experienced with AB (mostly DCS experience). Price is somewhat a factor, but the ease of use is more important.

I have several...

I like RSView better but WW is my second choice

Why do you want to get rid of the WW? you can get a license and run it on any "off the shelf PC" and it will work fine, it may save you some time in just transferring the existing app and not having to rewrite one from scratch

One upgrade I would suggest along with the replacement of the PCs is to replace the SLC5/03 with a SLC5/05 and go with ethernet as your communication network. It will necessitate an upgrade of the PV550 as well. Place all of the HMI PCs, the PLCs, and the HMI all on the same switch, perferably a managed switch (don't use a hub).

The recommendations you will get here on the forum will be excellent recommendations, but none of us have actually had our eyeballs in your plant, so I also suggest you bring in your local AB rep, walk through the system, and then sit down and talk over your options. Same goes for the wonderware rep.

I agree with Alaric, this would be a great time to upgrade the SLC and the PV550 and move to an Ethernet network instead of the DH485 network. You will get much better performance with the Ethernet network.

I did a project very similar to this a few years ago. We stayed with WW because it converted over to the latest release very easily. If you go with an RSView, Iconics or other SCADA package, there will probably be significant development to transfer the application to the new platform.

I would also recommend looking at other operator interfaces instead of the PanelView. Personally, I use the Red Lion G3. The connectivity is much better than PanelView and they are more capable as far as graphics and tools. You can probably get it for less money than a new PanelView, as well.

Regards.

jroachell said:

We recently took ownership of the water treatment portion of our plant. The plant uses a SLC 5/03 which communicates with a local PV550, but nearly all control functions are accessed through one of two HMIs. The HMIs are running Wonderware on some old WFW 3.11 computers. They communicate through the PC's RS 232 ports to the DH485 "KF3" boxes, one for each PC.

The powers that be have decided that we require some additional controls and indications. Unfortunately, we do not have the development license for the Wonderware, so I am pushing for a possible upgrade.

I would like some suggestions to possibly point me in the right direction. I would like to replace the PC's with off the shelf systems and would like to set up a basic HMI. Ease of setup would be preferable as I am not highly experienced with AB (mostly DCS experience). Price is somewhat a factor, but the ease of use is more important.

Click to expand...

Consider Red Lion G3s, also the development software is a free download from the web

Thanks to all for the VERY informative replies. I have contacted a local salesman about the Red Lion and am now scrambling to find the Wonderware licenses for upgrade pricing. I have forgotten basic Windows 3.11, however

Just another quick note. I believe that the new Wonderware platform is based on .net technology and will most likely require you to upgrade to Win 2K or XP Professional. Check with your local WW provider to see if it will run on your existing system, but upgrading from Windows 3.11 would be advisable.

Good luck with your project

One thing to note if you decide to keep the PV550 we lose our PV on a regular basis 1 per year due to water ingression from the top breather vent it typically destroys the LCD control module. If your water treatment plant has a high humidity or washdown I would seriously look for a better touchscreen that is more rugged preferrably nema 6p but check with the operators or maintenance records and find out how often its needed replacing

Yeps, +1 (that means I agree)! Alaric won't lead you astray...

GIT - I'm diggin' the new avatar!

Alaric said:

One upgrade I would suggest along with the replacement of the PCs is to replace the SLC5/03 with a SLC5/05 and go with ethernet as your communication network. It will necessitate an upgrade of the PV550 as well. Place all of the HMI PCs, the PLCs, and the HMI all on the same switch, perferably a managed switch (don't use a hub).

The recommendations you will get here on the forum will be excellent recommendations, but none of us have actually had our eyeballs in your plant, so I also suggest you bring in your local AB rep, walk through the system, and then sit down and talk over your options. Same goes for the wonderware rep.

Click to expand...

Agreed. Your other option is to use industrial panel mount touchscreen PCs instead of PanelViews. They are priced reasonably compared to a PanelView, I'm not sure how they compare price-wise to a G3. A PC will be considerably more powerful/capable than either, plus you have the advantage of only developing your HMI once. Also consider client side licensing costs and replacement procedure for PC based clients. Last, check what's involved to update a project and install a new version for each client - this can be time intensive if you're not using a "light" distributed system.

I like web based HMIs for touchscreen PC/panelview replacer type applications because they don't have a client side installation/configuration and client side licensing costs are usually non-existant. Also, changes/program upgrades occur centrally and are automatically "pushed" to all clients. Check out FactoryPMI if you want to go that route.

You won't go wrong with any of the above suggestions. Just get rid of Win 3.1 and get up on Ethernet!

KP_EENG said:

I would also recommend looking at other operator interfaces instead of the PanelView. Personally, I use the Red Lion G3. The connectivity is much better than PanelView and they are more capable as far as graphics and tools. You can probably get it for less money than a new PanelView, as well.

Regards.

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greeting surferb

As u have mentioned it is SLC 5/03 i guass it has a RS232 and a RS485 port. If it is a stand alone application then i suggest u do not upgrade the processer, OK regarding the HMI umay take RS View ME along with STUDIO or u may keep Panelview 600 touch over RS232 even if u want to make it on network then it doesnot required a SLC 5/05 use a NET ENI card and make on Ethernet Network OK speed may be a concern though it is on Ethernet the speed will be 19.2 KBPS if u have a huge amount of RTD or ANALOG inputs then u may watch the speed
Regards
Bikash

True, you do not necessarily need to upgrade the processor but if you are passing a lot of data between the processor and the HMI, you would see much better performance out of the SLC 5/05.

Also, I would be careful with the NET-ENI module. I have a SLC 5/03 and several Micrologix 1500 PLCs moniotoring facilities equipment reporting data back to RSView32. There seems to be a limitation of the number of words that I can recieve via RSLinx OPC. If I try to read more than 64 words of data back, RSLinx will drop any words over the 64 word limit and give me an OPC Server Comms error. I recently replaced the SLC 5/03 with a 5/05 which eliminated the NET-ENI and I don't have the limitation any more, but the limitation still exists with the Micrologix using the NET-ENI. I have not researched it in depth, but I am thinking that this is hardware limitation with the NET-ENI.

Also, we are currently upgrading the RSView32 installation to Wonderware. RSView works OK for a single machine installation, but we are seeing a host of problems with this large scale system. Mainly, the RSView will just lockup and we will need to reboot the server to get it going again and communications issues. We have paid for the AB support contract for the last three years, but they are not much help. Same goes with our PlantMetrics software. We are junking it and going with Wonderware System Platform. (Sorry about the AB rant)

Regards

Dear KP EENG
The Limitation was not due to NET ENI regarding MICRO LOGIX I have no idea because I have networked 10 SLC 5/03 using NET ENI oh one good thing at that time waws that there r no analog IP

bikash said:

Dear KP EENG
The Limitation was not due to NET ENI regarding MICRO LOGIX I have no idea because I have networked 10 SLC 5/03 using NET ENI oh one good thing at that time waws that there r no analog IP

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Bikash,

If I understand your post correctly, you are stating that my limitation is not due to the number of PLCs that can be networked with the NET-ENI. I arrived at this conclusion because you stated that you have networked 10 SLC 5/03. If I am mistaken, please accept my apologies, but this is not what I am addressing at all.

I do not disagree that you can network 10 SLC 5/03 processors, I am addressing the fact that if I try to poll more than 64 words of data from a device, SLC or Micrologix, connected to an Ehternet network via a NET-ENI device, then I will loose some of that data. I have seen it loose the new data above the 64 word limit and I have seen it loose some of the older data but get the new data.

As previously mentioned, I only notice this with the devices that are connected to the NET-ENI. The SLC 5/05 has no issues at all. Regardless, I am currently planning a project to replace the Micrologix and NET-ENI devices with Wago programmable fieldbus controllers, which will eliminate the problem.

Regards

I do not disagree that you can network 10 SLC 5/03 processors, I am addressing the fact that if I try to poll more than 64 words of data from a device, SLC or Micrologix, connected to an Ehternet network via a NET-ENI device, then I will loose some of that data. I have seen it loose the new data above the 64 word limit and I have seen it loose some of the older data but get the new data.

As previously mentioned, I only notice this with the devices that are connected to the NET-ENI. The SLC 5/05 has no issues at all. Regardless, I am currently planning a project to replace the Micrologix and NET-ENI devices with Wago programmable fieldbus controllers, which will eliminate the problem.

Click to expand...

Why not consider using Micrologix 1100 which has a built-in E-net port. This way you can preserve most of the ladder logic. There is a limitation as far as number of I/O goes though.