Annoying things in WinCC Flex and Panels

userxyz · Apr 9, 2011

Hi,

I get frustrated by the way things are made in wysiwyg and appear differently in the Runtime of a panel. When you enter text and Auto-Sizing is on, in the ES it looks fine but once in Runtime on the panel, a piece of the text is cutoff. So solve the I need to disable Auto-Sizing and stretch the text field. Why is this ?

Another thing is the speed of the panels. When I place too much shaded symbols from the symbol library (pipes, pumps, tanks,...) the panel gets seriously slow. Especially when opening a screen that has a lot objects on that screen. For a current project I have the issue that it can take up to 5s for opening a screen. My screens are build synoptical for making it the operator easy. We're in the year 2011, I don't understand why such slow panels must cost that much money. When I run my flex project in Simulation (Runtime PC) then it works very good. So I should use a Panel PC to solve this...

Another frustrating thing is when you build a PC Runtime in a certain resolution. When you must change the resolution for some reason, all the textfields must be corrected and other graphical errors appear also (objects misplaced,...). Okay, the problem of the texts happens in Wonderware also. The fields are scaled, but the textproperty remains.

The MP277 panels, is this coincidence or are these panels not very reliable ? The last year I have replaced many MP277's for several customers. For 1 customer part specifically I had to place an other brand of panels because he didn't want the Siemens panels anymore. It was in a wet environement with an MP277 inox. We placed a Beckhoff (with atom processor) instead with wincc flex runtime on it. The Runtime works a 100 times faster then an MP.

Do you guys also experience such problems ?

For the rest WinCC Flex is a very good HMI soft.

Kind Regards,
Combo

userxyz · Apr 20, 2011

Hello

Only happy WinCC Flex users ???

Combo said:
Hi,

I get frustrated by the way things are made in wysiwyg and appear differently in the Runtime of a panel. When you enter text and Auto-Sizing is on, in the ES it looks fine but once in Runtime on the panel, a piece of the text is cutoff. So solve the I need to disable Auto-Sizing and stretch the text field. Why is this ?

Another thing is the speed of the panels. When I place too much shaded symbols from the symbol library (pipes, pumps, tanks,...) the panel gets seriously slow. Especially when opening a screen that has a lot objects on that screen. For a current project I have the issue that it can take up to 5s for opening a screen. My screens are build synoptical for making it the operator easy. We're in the year 2011, I don't understand why such slow panels must cost that much money. When I run my flex project in Simulation (Runtime PC) then it works very good. So I should use a Panel PC to solve this...

Another frustrating thing is when you build a PC Runtime in a certain resolution. When you must change the resolution for some reason, all the textfields must be corrected and other graphical errors appear also (objects misplaced,...). Okay, the problem of the texts happens in Wonderware also. The fields are scaled, but the textproperty remains.

The MP277 panels, is this coincidence or are these panels not very reliable ? The last year I have replaced many MP277's for several customers. For 1 customer part specifically I had to place an other brand of panels because he didn't want the Siemens panels anymore. It was in a wet environement with an MP277 inox. We placed a Beckhoff (with atom processor) instead with wincc flex runtime on it. The Runtime works a 100 times faster then an MP.

Do you guys also experience such problems ?

For the rest WinCC Flex is a very good HMI soft.

Kind Regards,
Combo

choofa · Apr 21, 2011

I agree! Annoying things with WinCC flex and Panels

I have the exact same issues with MP277 panels you have stated, auto size text gets cut off on the panel when it looks fine on PC, and most annoyingly screens with the most objects (normally over view screens) are painfully slow!

I agree with you entirely that in this day and age performance like this is not acceptable. I thought it may have been communications overload from the number af tags being updated on use with the overview screens, but I have gone to the extent where I have removed all tags from the screen and the problem still persists! Clearly it is a system performance issue to do with the number of (and detail of) graphics on the particular screen. I have a time and date field on the bottom of the screen that highlights our issue as it will miss seconds, sometimes upto 5 or more, but on screens with fewer graphics there is no problem and it updates every second.

Runtime simulation as you said on PC is not a problem, only on the physical screen. I have played with the slider in control panel to vary how much memory is assigned for programs and how much for processing but it has no effect. I have rang the siemens helpline countless times but no one can help, Even taked to siemens engineers and company representatives, It's like belting your head against a brick wall!

It appears the only way to speed the screen up is take out all the symbol library graphics, particularly ones that are shaded different colours depending on tag values (i.e grey pipes that turn blue when pumps run, or red if a fault is present). The point is however I don't think I am asking too much of the screens, this it what they are designed to do so surely they can handle a few dynamic symbol library graphics !! It seems they have gutless processing power!

Like you also said this is dissapointing because siemens gear in general (PLC's, instrumentation), i find to be of the best quality you can get, even winCC flexible and every other aspect of Siemens panels are fantastic, it's just this annoying issue of them not coping well with screens that have more dynamic graphics than others. This is especially frustrating considering the panels are like a mini computer, so in the year 2011 surely they should have the proccessing power that should be able to absolutely fly through the small tasks we are asking of them!

I hear you brother! It's just I don't think there are any answers?

As I really like winCC in general I don't particularly want to change the panels I use, so I hope the next generation of panels step it up a few gears with their processing power.

If anyone else has had similar problems, or has discovered any miracle cures please let us know!

The only cure I have found for now is to just accept slow overview screens are unavoidable when the customer requires a resonable amount of detail on them, and to go home and crack a cold beer straight out of the fridge and forget about it

. . .

well this works very well for me anyway, give it a try

userxyz · Apr 21, 2011

Glad

Hello,

Glad that I am not the only one with these issues.
Glad that someone replied.

All the rest on this forum seem to be Siemens kissers

Kind regards,
Combo

choofa said:
I have the exact same issues with MP277 panels you have stated, auto size text gets cut off on the panel when it looks fine on PC, and most annoyingly screens with the most objects (normally over view screens) are painfully slow!

I agree with you entirely that in this day and age performance like this is not acceptable. I thought it may have been communications overload from the number af tags being updated on use with the overview screens, but I have gone to the extent where I have removed all tags from the screen and the problem still persists! Clearly it is a system performance issue to do with the number of (and detail of) graphics on the particular screen. I have a time and date field on the bottom of the screen that highlights our issue as it will miss seconds, sometimes upto 5 or more, but on screens with fewer graphics there is no problem and it updates every second.

Runtime simulation as you said on PC is not a problem, only on the physical screen. I have played with the slider in control panel to vary how much memory is assigned for programs and how much for processing but it has no effect. I have rang the siemens helpline countless times but no one can help, Even taked to siemens engineers and company representatives, It's like belting your head against a brick wall!

It appears the only way to speed the screen up is take out all the symbol library graphics, particularly ones that are shaded different colours depending on tag values (i.e grey pipes that turn blue when pumps run, or red if a fault is present). The point is however I don't think I am asking too much of the screens, this it what they are designed to do so surely they can handle a few dynamic symbol library graphics !! It seems they have gutless processing power!

Like you also said this is dissapointing because siemens gear in general (PLC's, instrumentation), i find to be of the best quality you can get, even winCC flexible and every other aspect of Siemens panels are fantastic, it's just this annoying issue of them not coping well with screens that have more dynamic graphics than others. This is especially frustrating considering the panels are like a mini computer, so in the year 2011 surely they should have the proccessing power that should be able to absolutely fly through the small tasks we are asking of them!

I hear you brother! It's just I don't think there are any answers?

As I really like winCC in general I don't particularly want to change the panels I use, so I hope the next generation of panels step it up a few gears with their processing power.

If anyone else has had similar problems, or has discovered any miracle cures please let us know!

The only cure I have found for now is to just accept slow overview screens are unavoidable when the customer requires a resonable amount of detail on them, and to go home and crack a cold beer straight out of the fridge and forget about it . . .

well this works very well for me anyway, give it a try

RMA · Apr 21, 2011

All the rest on this forum seem to be Siemens kissers

Or maybe it's just that some of us are lucky enough (almost) always to have a PC for the HMI.

JesperMP · Apr 21, 2011

The problem with the WYSIWYG errors is Microsofts fault, not Siemens. Of course, that is no help to the endusers.

The next generation panels ("comfort panels") should be even more powerful than the Multipanels despite that they are less expensive.

userxyz · Apr 21, 2011

hmm

You allways place PC's, never panels, even on stand-alone machines, cool, but I will not buy a machine from you

.

The PC Runtime messes up the text as well.

RMA said:
Or maybe it's just that some of us are lucky enough (almost) always to have a PC for the HMI.

userxyz · Apr 21, 2011

ok

Ok, then it's better to buy HMI's that don't run on Microsoft if I understand well.

The performance of the MP's is a desaster. Way to slow.

Another thing I want to mention: The MP277 10" touch panels... the combo boxes, entering numbers on the keypad, closing the alarm window, these things are a nightmare, even after calibrating...

JesperMP said:
The problem with the WYSIWYG errors is Microsofts fault, not Siemens. Of course, that is no help to the endusers.

The next generation panels ("comfort panels") should be even more powerful than the Multipanels despite that they are less expensive.

JesperMP · Apr 22, 2011

Combo said:
The PC Runtime messes up the text as well.

This I have never experienced.

CharlesM · Apr 22, 2011

The PC Runtime messes up the text as well.

I've had that trouble with RT if the computer I am developing on is not the same resolution as the one RT is on.

I wonder how close V11 will be to what we are using now? I hope they fix some of these things and add some functionality. The last few updates I have seen some fixes and speed improvements but not extra functions.

The MP277 panels, is this coincidence or are these panels not very reliable ? The last year I have replaced many MP277's for several customers. For 1 customer part specifically I had to place an other brand of panels because he didn't want the Siemens panels anymore. It was in a wet environement with an MP277 inox. We placed a Beckhoff (with atom processor) instead with wincc flex runtime on it. The Runtime works a 100 times faster then an MP.

I just started using some mobile panels 177. I like what I can do with it because its mobile but the screen quality is bad. I did use a small Beckhoff screen a while back and it looked great. I've not had any speed issues with the mobile panel but the program is very small and simple.

userxyz · Apr 22, 2011

hmm

Try changing you resolution of the runtime in device settings, it will be messed up !!

JesperMP said:
This I have never experienced.

JesperMP · Apr 22, 2011

Combo said:
Try changing you resolution of the runtime in device settings, it will be messed up !!

This is a different phenomenon to the problems with differences between the regular Windows and CE.
When I change resolution in PC RT, I chose to keep the existing size of fonts and graphics. And then I touch up the result. I have no problems with that.

Jeff23spl · Apr 22, 2011

it's kind of interresting to hear that as on my side i would say this king of argument for AB stuff and worst for some other brand....I didn't have so much problem with Siemens PLC and HMI until i have tried S7-1200!!!
IM doing a small PV600+ actually that give me headache as i spent few hours figuring out connectivity...

I try to use the right panel size for the application so when i got something huge, i use a panel PC instead when it sometimes cost less than big MP....Past 6 inch, i switch for PC477B and they are nice but you need to be aware of the wincc flex installed version.

Screen image and text sizing according to screen resolution will give the resizing problem regardless of the plateform used...just try to use another screen resolution shape on your pc and you will understand...

Did you have tried to slow down the tag refresh of the value shown that shouldn't change so fast? for exemple if you read 500 tags at each 100ms it can slow it down for sure

userxyz · Apr 23, 2011

tag refresh

All tags are set to 500ms.
This is not the problem, I allready tried to deactivate all animations, CHOOFA did the same. It's because of the shaded symbols !! This makes it slow. It is unacceptable in the year 2011. I want to make my visualisations as realistic as possible, so shaded symbols are a must... The MP's get not just slow because of this, but unbelievebely slow !!

The Hardware is the problem I think. MP's are junk.
When I run it on a PC, it runs really good, so the problem is really the performance of the MP's.

Kind regards,
Combo

Jeff23spl said:
it's kind of interresting to hear that as on my side i would say this king of argument for AB stuff and worst for some other brand....I didn't have so much problem with Siemens PLC and HMI until i have tried S7-1200!!!
IM doing a small PV600+ actually that give me headache as i spent few hours figuring out connectivity...

I try to use the right panel size for the application so when i got something huge, i use a panel PC instead when it sometimes cost less than big MP....Past 6 inch, i switch for PC477B and they are nice but you need to be aware of the wincc flex installed version.

Screen image and text sizing according to screen resolution will give the resizing problem regardless of the plateform used...just try to use another screen resolution shape on your pc and you will understand...

Did you have tried to slow down the tag refresh of the value shown that shouldn't change so fast? for exemple if you read 500 tags at each 100ms it can slow it down for sure

JesperMP · Apr 23, 2011

I dont believe in achieving photorealism in the HMI screens.
It adds nothing to the functionality. On the contrary.
That the more complex graphics functions slows down on the CE panels is just another argument to stay clear of such unnecessary stuff. Definitely not a "must".

Annoying things in WinCC Flex and Panels

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