Wonderware or Visual Basic

Hello

In our work we have currently 4 computers with visual basic 6 hmi aplication.
We would like to upgrade but im not so sure to invest time in visual studio 2008 or intouch.
I downloaded an intouch demo but i see that it is very complicated because there is not enough literature on how to work with plcs, and the idea of working with visual studio seems more universal.

Which one of this programs do you recommend?

You are comparing apples to oranges.

Visual Studio is meant for programmers to program anything - games, iphone apps, windows utilities...HMI screens are a side benefit.

Wonderware is purpose built as an HMI application - it has interfaces to talk to various PLC's that ship with it (or can be had from Invensys...) With visual basic, you'll be doing a bit more 'hard coding' to get the PC to talk to the PLC.

There are manufacturer specific HMI products out there - I think that everyone who makes a PLC also makes a dedicated HMI box that you could use.

Wonderware seems to have a lot of users all over the world. You could argue that Visual basic has more users, but I'd ask - how much developing/changing HMI screens do you plan on doing ?

Here we put a big emphasis on manufacturer support. How local is your Wonderware distributor ? do they have any experts or other users you could share/get info from ?

And, as is often the case here - we need more info
1) what are you controlling ?
2) how old is the equipment ?
3) PLC/controller manufacturer ?
4) Plans for future expansion ?
5) current programming/maintenance experience ?

The more you help us, the more we can help you

-John

Right now we have 4 stations each one is totally independant from each other

1.- PC with an Visual Basic 6 programmed HMI and SLC 5/04 (windows 95) DH+ connection to PLC thru a pci board in the pc
2.- Same as 1
3.- PC with an Visual Basic 6 programmed HMI and SLC 5/05 ethernet connection
4.- same as 3

I have experience working in AB panel builders, Automation Direct Touch Screens, and Panel Mate

But when they asked me if i could update this using a PC i didnt thought it could be so challenging, we just bought a new equipment and i talk to the programmer and he told me he used Visual Studio 2008, and another friend told me that wonderware intouch could be very easy to work with

The thing is that i have seen that the intouch is very complicated to work with due there really isnt a lot of documentation to selflearning, with the commercial hmi software i remmember that in least than one week i already learned and deliver my first projects, but it has been 2 weeks and i have not been able to even understand how to map the inputs or outputs to the plc.

havent looked into visual studio, but do you think i should have patiente and stay focus on intouch or there is a software more easy to use.

InTouch is indeed well documented, and very easy to work with.
The newer releases of programming languages for Visual Studio (which is NOT a programming language, it's just an IDE) are significantly different from the era of VB6. You will most likely need a complete re-write anyway to upgrade to the current VB level.

I'm just picking up ww as I go along - we have a 3 plc Material Handling system that has a wonderware HMI. I'm learning by book/self to improve that system - it was installed in a hurry and there are lots of gaps in the system.

I've found the documentation to be ok - most of the good pdf's were in with the software (so I had to go to our MH yard and copy them to my local machine for viewing)

So far, the small changes I've made have worked pretty well. This is the only HMI software I've ever used, so I'm not a good reviewer. I've only had to contact the integrator (the original programmer) once with a small question about our specific config (alarm servers) with a short answer from him I was back on my way.

Maybe someone with better multi-platform experience can answer about RSView etc... I am not unhappy with wonderware.

edit - length

I think you have to look at the specific application to decide whether or not to go with VB or something like Wonderware, Intouch, etc.
I have worked on programs like pattern creation and database manipulation programs with extensive math in which VB or C was the only way to go.
i have also worked on other programs where programming it in RSVIEW SE was the better choice.
Some of the packages like Wonderware do support VB, C, C++?
Someone else should be able to fill in to what capacity different prgrammming languages are supported.
You also have to consider license costs for a lot of these.

I also found this link comparing Wonderware vrs. VB
http://www.parijat.com/literature/info/VISUAL%20BASIC%20Versus%20WonderWare%20Intouch%20as%20an%20HMI.pdf

i've working on intouch right now, i got a demo but it didn't had some programs, like the opc-link and the opc tag creator, so i was kind of lost in the way, as i told you guys i was used to AB panel builder, panel view 1000c , cmore software of automation direct, and they are very different from intouch or vb6. the only thing that bothers me a little is that i dont know how to map the tags without being connected to the plc and using the opc tag creator for allen bradley plcs.

I guess my company is doing the right stuff, they want to upgrade this machines and start taking out the panelviews wich repairs is very expensive, we been quoting new panel views or industrial pcs around 4K usd, and its repairs around 2K usd
so we want to use just regular pcs with intouch, the are around 1K and very easy to replace instead of repair.

We primarily use WW for our applications, but I have also used the C-more software. Both are very easy to use. WW requires some kind of IO server. I believe when you purchase the software, it comes with ABTCP which talks directly with AB PLCs. We are using TopServer for our application. What little I know about Visual Studio is that it is complicated to use if you are not a programmer. WW is much more user friendly, being object oriented instead of script based. Getting WW setup would be the trickiest part and with the right IO server, even that is easy. It is VERY easy to make/map tags in WW.

With WW, your application can also reside on one computer and you can have client computers monitor it for changes, so you only have to make the changes once. All of this is documented in the manuals which are also included with the software.

One thing that gets overlooked when people start asking about using a programming language for an HMI vs using an application specifically developed for an HMI is one of supportability.

Sure, you may be proficient at VB or other, but what about when you move on? It is irresponsible to your employer to create something that works for the moment and is not able to be efficiently supported in the future.

Scenario ... you create a VB app for monitoring a widget line, base OS is Win2k. 5 years later, you have moved on and a virus infects all the company computers. Sure they have a backup of the app, but the OS will now be Win7 because the IT department and MS will not support Win2k. Now the architecture is significantly changed and the app won't run under Win7. Now what is the employer to do? Whatever it is will be of significant cost because the app is a one of a kind development that may or may not have any (or decent) documentation.

Where as a vendor who creates the HMI applications (say WW, or RA) does testing against patches and OS configurations, and of course comes out with new versions just because they can.

Please do a life cost analysis before going down the lone ranger road.

And ... the ability to support any future data requests will be greatly easier with an HMI that has the features or future ability to asertain that information versus a single one off application that only has a few features.

Very well put - so true! I'm sure nearly everyone here has experienced some form of that scenario.

Oakley said:

One thing that gets overlooked when people start asking about using a programming language for an HMI vs using an application specifically developed for an HMI is one of supportability...

Scenario ... you create a VB app for monitoring a widget line, base OS is Win2k. 5 years later, you have moved on and a virus infects all the company computers. Sure they have a backup of the app, but the OS will now be Win7 because the IT department and MS will not support Win2k. Now the architecture is significantly changed and the app won't run under Win7. Now what is the employer to do?
...

Please do a life cost analysis before going down the lone ranger road.

And ... the ability to support any future data requests will be greatly easier with an HMI that has the features or future ability to asertain that information versus a single one off application that only has a few features.

Click to expand...

I would recommend Indusoft. There are plenty of samples, the support is great, and it is easy to setup PLC communications. They have plenty of drivers to communicate with many of the PLC venodrs. It uses VBScript and its own scripting language, easily links to databases etc. I am currently doing a Wonderware application and things that are easy in Indusoft seem quite difficult in Wonderware.

Oakley said:

One thing that gets overlooked when people start asking about using a programming language for an HMI vs using an application specifically developed for an HMI is one of supportability.

......

Click to expand...

Oh so true.

Another aspect: don't underestimate the time needed for building a custom build HMI application in a 'higher' programming language. It can be massive, cause in the end we still want too have all those features that most scada-packages allready have as standard feature (alarm follow-up, historical trending, animation, logging etc.). These languages are much more complicated than 'configuring' an average scada application.

It could be proffitable though, if large numbers of the same HMI are expected to be sold (machine builders).

Greetz

Frank

What Franky says. You can create a pretty sophisticated HMI in a few weeks with a HMI/SCADA package, which would take many months to produce using a VBA-based setup. This is the very definition of re-inventing a wheel (but doing it worse the second time). Use VB to add custom features to a SCADA if you will (database, innovative visualization etc), but my advice is not to use it for the backbone of the program.