Crimson 3.0 Data Tags setup

RonJohn · Jul 17, 2013

Hey all. I've been an A-B user for millenia, but ventured into the world of Red Lion HMI recently. I could use some insight into setting up data tags within Crimson.

I am used to direct accessing PLC tags in the A-B Logix PLC and would prefer not to create more Data Tags in the HMI than absolutely necessary. In other words, I have a PLC tag "PB" which is an array of 10 DINTs assigned for HMI push buttons. Do I need to create 320 individual flag tags (PB1 - PB320) for each bit or can I get away with one tag for each DINT and access the tag at bit level (PB1.14)? Better yet, can I create one array tag which I could then access at element/bit level (PB[2].2)?

Of course, the "can I" questions need to be followed with "should I". Unless I'm missing something, individual tags are of no real help to me as far as I can see because I will not be changing source addresses. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance

JHarbin · Jul 17, 2013

RonJohn said:
Hey all. I've been an A-B user for millenia, but ventured into the world of Red Lion HMI recently. I could use some insight into setting up data tags within Crimson.

I am used to direct accessing PLC tags in the A-B Logix PLC and would prefer not to create more Data Tags in the HMI than absolutely necessary. In other words, I have a PLC tag "PB" which is an array of 10 DINTs assigned for HMI push buttons. Do I need to create 320 individual flag tags (PB1 - PB320) for each bit or can I get away with one tag for each DINT and access the tag at bit level (PB1.14)? Better yet, can I create one array tag which I could then access at element/bit level (PB[2].2)?

Of course, the "can I" questions need to be followed with "should I". Unless I'm missing something, individual tags are of no real help to me as far as I can see because I will not be changing source addresses. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance

Can you? - Yes to both questions.

Should you? - I like individual tags and I like to use folders in Crimson 3.0 to group related items.

For instance, I would have a folder Pump1 with tags under it for Start, Stop, Status, etc. The tags can have the same name for each pump and would be addressed on the graphics as Pump1.Start, Pump2.Start, etc. These folders can be copied and pasted with the tags then mapped correctly. Then I would create Widgets and bind the folders to the widget.

There isn't anything saying that you couldn't create a PB tag and map the individual tags to the PB[0].0, PB[0].1
PB[10].16, etc tags. if you want to.

I guess I should provide this caveat - I don't work with AB all that often so I'm not sure about addressing the array part, but the bit part is easy. I believe you can access A-B arrays, but I am only stating that you can do it easily in Crimson 3.0

RonJohn · Jul 17, 2013

Thanks JHarbin for the answer as well as the caveat.

I haven't done anything with widgets at this point - just trying to get my feet wet for now. I see where setting up tags as you mentioned would be beneficial in that instance. I wonder if that's the only place where it's an advantage.

The angle I'm coming from is I'm trying to avoid creating tag databases in the HMI and PLC if possible. I was thinking that using the same tag name in both places would keep things relatively clear from a programming standpoint. It appears that I'll need individual tags for each alarm bit & that's acceptable as I'll need to enter the alarm text for each fault anyway.

Regards.

JHarbin · Jul 17, 2013

RonJohn said:
Thanks JHarbin for the answer as well as the caveat.

I haven't done anything with widgets at this point - just trying to get my feet wet for now. I see where setting up tags as you mentioned would be beneficial in that instance. I wonder if that's the only place where it's an advantage.

The angle I'm coming from is I'm trying to avoid creating tag databases in the HMI and PLC if possible. I was thinking that using the same tag name in both places would keep things relatively clear from a programming standpoint. It appears that I'll need individual tags for each alarm bit & that's acceptable as I'll need to enter the alarm text for each fault anyway.

Regards.

I think that folders make database navigation much easier as well as being used for widgets. If you have a lot of similar items, you really want to create folders and use widgets.

My folders quite often have many, many tags such as DESC, SECURITY, AUX, SW (switch) SW_FDBK, VFD_FDBK, VFD_OUT, and many more. That allows widgets to pick up everything you might want to use.

Another benefit is that while you can only copy one tag at a time, you can copy a whole folder at one time. That allows you to duplicate a bunch of tags at once.

As far as the alarms go, you can have two Alarms per Tag and I have been able to use bits from another tag to fire them, it is rather complicated and it would probably be easier to just map the Alarm Tag to your MainTag[0].0, etc and then use Active On as your Alarm Type.

RonJohn · Jul 18, 2013

Thanks. One of the things we're aiming for is simplicity within the HMI program. Reducing or eliminating the need for a separate HMI tag database goes a long way towards that simplification. A big improvement when A-B went from the PV to the PV+ was giving the ability to access tags directly from the PLC program.

I'm actually comparing the Red Lion Crimson with Maple Systems EZwarePlus & ProFace HMI software for this project. Maple has that ability. I haven't worked w/ ProFace yet. I started down that route with Red Lion, but their tech support is trying to steer me away from that into the Data Tags instead. I'm impressed with their graphic display options, but if a separate data base is the way to make their stuff go, maybe Red Lion is not the best choice for us.

JHarbin · Jul 18, 2013

RonJohn said:
Thanks. One of the things we're aiming for is simplicity within the HMI program. Reducing or eliminating the need for a separate HMI tag database goes a long way towards that simplification. A big improvement when A-B went from the PV to the PV+ was giving the ability to access tags directly from the PLC program.

I'm actually comparing the Red Lion Crimson with Maple Systems EZwarePlus & ProFace HMI software for this project. Maple has that ability. I haven't worked w/ ProFace yet. I started down that route with Red Lion, but their tech support is trying to steer me away from that into the Data Tags instead. I'm impressed with their graphic display options, but if a separate data base is the way to make their stuff go, maybe Red Lion is not the best choice for us.

Red Lion's Tech Support is some of the best in the business. They frequent this site (as does the President of the company) and they are quick to respond to emails that you send them.

Why don't you play with the software and import the PLC database (Native Tags using LK5 File) into Crimson 3.0 to see what you think of it. Contact Red Lion with questions.

Personally, I've always thought *not* building my own HMI database caused me to end up with a whole bunch of stuff I didn't want so I have just explicitly picked what I wanted.

Clay B. · Jul 19, 2013

RonJohn said:
I'm actually comparing the Red Lion Crimson with Maple Systems EZwarePlus & ProFace HMI software for this project. Maple has that ability. I haven't worked w/ ProFace yet. I started down that route with Red Lion, but their tech support is trying to steer me away from that into the Data Tags instead. I'm impressed with their graphic display options, but if a separate data base is the way to make their stuff go, maybe Red Lion is not the best choice for us.

As JHarbin suggested building your own data base is not as hard as you think. Also the G3's have alot more under the hood than just touch screens. I have used all the screens you called out and in my opinion the G3 gives a lot more bang for the buck and is pretty easy to use.

Brijm · Jul 19, 2013

RonJohn said:
Hey all. I've been an A-B user for millenia, but ventured into the world of Red Lion HMI recently. I could use some insight into setting up data tags within Crimson.

I am used to direct accessing PLC tags in the A-B Logix PLC and would prefer not to create more Data Tags in the HMI than absolutely necessary. In other words, I have a PLC tag "PB" which is an array of 10 DINTs assigned for HMI push buttons. Do I need to create 320 individual flag tags (PB1 - PB320) for each bit or can I get away with one tag for each DINT and access the tag at bit level (PB1.14)? Better yet, can I create one array tag which I could then access at element/bit level (PB[2].2)?

Of course, the "can I" questions need to be followed with "should I". Unless I'm missing something, individual tags are of no real help to me as far as I can see because I will not be changing source addresses. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance

You can create an array and access the bit level. I have done this with status's before. I believe that the only problem I had was that you cannot do indirect addressing at the bit level. So in a widget PB[x].0 was ok pb[1].x was not.

RonJohn · Jul 19, 2013

Clay B. said:
As JHarbin suggested building your own data base is not as hard as you think. Also the G3's have alot more under the hood than just touch screens. I have used all the screens you called out and in my opinion the G3 gives a lot more bang for the buck and is pretty easy to use.

Thanks Clay. While I tend to agree, my boss is the one who'll need convincing. The trick is to look at the overall picture, not just the HMI tag database.

You can create an array and access the bit level. I have done this with status's before. I believe that the only problem I had was that you cannot do indirect addressing at the bit level. So in a widget PB[x].0 was ok pb[1].x was not.

Thanks Brijm. Good insight.

I seem to have run into a slight snag with numeric data entry. It doesn't appear possible to enter a number to a PLC tag. I can create one HMI tag for my data entry array (DINT[100]) but I cannot access individual limits within the object. Apparently these are only stored within the tag format??? If this is true, is there a way to use indexing to changes these limits?

Crimson 3.0 Data Tags setup

RonJohn

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