FactoryTalk View Studio SE clarification

Hello all,


Can someone knowledge check me to see if I have the correct understanding about FactoryTalk View apps


Network Distributed - Many FactoryTalk View Site Edition Clients on the same network can connect to one PC hosting the HMI app


Network Station - The HMI app and the FactoryTalk View Site Edition Clients has to be on the same PC?


Local Station - Isn't this the same as Network Station?


FactoryTalk ME - HMI and ME client on same PC that connects to PLC or the ME Station client can be on another PC as long as it has RsLinx .





I am looking to see the best application to use to have an HMI client be on a different workstation than the workstation that is connected to the PLC. Couldn't I just use FactoryTalk ME Station (the PC client) and use RSLinx to point to the PLC?


Thank you for your time sorting this out for me.

Your summary is pretty much spot on. The one that always gets people is Network Station. Yeah, on the surface it sounds very much like Local Station.

Network Distributed allows multiple clients connecting to one or more HMI servers, using one of more data servers, with redundant server capability.

Network Station allows the PC to operate on the FT Network directory. This could allow us to use FT network users so if we had multiple FT applications they could all be using a common set of users, groups, and policies. Additionally, this FT network directory could have a Historian located on another PC. That would allow my server machine to communicate with the Historian machine. With Local applications that all has to be the same PC. But more importantly, my engineering PC could be editing the application on the server PC while it continues to run and the client is interacting with it. To me, that is the most important feature for Network Station.

As for Local, everything has to be on the same PC, except for OPC servers. They can be on remote PCs (same on Network type apps).

And with ME there is no separation between HMI server and client. It is all the same thing. Sort of an even more locked down version of Local.

As for your "...couldn't I just use...ME". Yes, sort of. But it gets a little ugly. You could have a Data Server (the PC connected to the controller) and it would need a paid version of RSLinx Classic to enable Remote OPC. Then the "Client" PC would actually be running the HMI and getting it's data from the data server PC using OPC. Really though, to do what you are asking would require ViewPoint. This would run the application on the machine that is connected to the PLC and then you would use a web browser to connect to the application and remotely interact with it.

But ME is much more limited than SE, and you would not have any ability to edit the running application. It looks like you would need the Distributed type application since the client is on a separate computer. But if ME and ViewPoint get the job done, it would be a lot less expensive.



OG