Red Lion Crimson 3: programmatic trend pause ?

Ken Roach

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Hello, fellow Red Lion Crimson 3 enthusiasts,

I am a beginner with the Red Lion data logging and Trend Viewer objects, but I have the basic Data Log set up and putting data on the screen.

There are a handful of things I'd like to customize about the Trend Viewer that I don't see obvious ways to do. So I'm asking here !

1. Can I programmatically pause the trend ?

Clicking the "<" button puts the trend in 'Historical' mode and stops trending forward, but I don't think it stops the data log. I have an unattended process and want the trend to stop at the end, so that an operator who walks back up to the machine minutes or hours later doesn't have to click the < or << buttons to try to find the data that was gathered during the process cycle.

2. Can I hide any of the trend features, like the Date/Width/Live banner on top, or the In/Out buttons below ?

I suppose I could link their color with a tag and make them background-colored. I just want to simplify the appearance of the trend, since I'm using the relatively small screen of the G306A.

3. Is there any way to specify the Historical position of data on the Trend ?

It would be very neat if I could show the data from a previous batch by launching the Trend object in Historical mode with a specified end time and span.

I'm coming from a background using the limited Trend object in FactoryTalk View ME, but have dabbled in the power of the Chart object in Inductive Automation Ignition, so maybe I'm spoiled being able to programatically address all the supporting aspects of a complex object like a Trend.
 
Hello, fellow Red Lion Crimson 3 enthusiasts,
1. Can I programmatically pause the trend ?

Under the data log you configured, look at the "Log Enable", is that what you are looking for?

2. Can I hide any of the trend features, like the Date/Width/Live banner on top, or the In/Out buttons below ?
No not that I know of, I usually just obscure them with something else
I suppose I could link their color with a tag and make them background-colored. I just want to simplify the appearance of the trend, since I'm using the relatively small screen of the G306A.

3. Is there any way to specify the Historical position of data on the Trend ?

It would be very neat if I could show the data from a previous batch by launching the Trend object in Historical mode with a specified end time and span.
You can specify the pen width, but I've never found a way to specify an end time. If you find a way to let me know.
 
There is a batch logging option. Right hand side of Crimson3 window, at the bottom, pick System. Expand Functions in the tool pane, then expand logging. Click the ? at the top and then click on one of the batch commands to open help. I'm not sure how you would programatically halt the trend display or specify the position of the trend in the history file.
 
Hmm. I think I'm going to have to experiment with the 'Triggered Snapshot' Update Type.

What I've found with the Crimson 3 user manuals is that they're very concise; if you already know how something works, they explain it in a straightforward way that doesn't include a lot of extra information or examples.

This can work against them a little when you're trying to understand a function without any prior experience or frame of reference.
 
With a triggered snapshot you create the sample rate.

With the enable you can turn the data logger on and off but still use the crimsons sample rate.
 
I'm on the bunny slope.

It's starting to come together for me.

The typical Crimson 3 data log runs all the time; it's a Continous Sample at the Update Rate (1 second minimum), and there are no Control tags associated with it. It just updates all the time, until the file is full of samples, and discards files once there are enough to surpass the Retain At Most threshold.

When you use a Trend with this data log, you can use the 'LIVE' and Historical scroll buttons once there is enough data to fill the screen. Even while you are in Historical mode, the data keeps logging to the file, so you'll see the data points on the Trend display that were logged while you were looking at Historical data.

This is very similar to the Data Log Model and the Trend objects in FactoryTalk View ME, except you can have more than one Data Log in Crimson.

If you put a tag into the Log Enable field, you can use your Crimson program or a PLC tag to start and stop the Data Logger. It just stops whenever the expression or tag is false. Time keeps on passing, and because the Trend Viewer has time as the X axis, you see a dotted line connecting the last data collected and the point in time when data collection resumed. If more time than is visible on the Trend Viewer has passed, there is no dotted line and the trend pens just start drawing again on the right side of the screen.

Tim's statement that "with the triggered snapshot you create the sample rate" made the light bulb go on for me.

When I start a Trend with the Log Trigger tag false, the Trend is blank and says 'WAITING FOR DATA' across the top. Each time the Log Trigger tag goes from false to true, the Data Log inserts just one record with the values of the tags in the data log. If the Log Enable is also tied to a tag or expression and it is false, the Log Trigger transition does not save any records to the data log.

I don't really like the dotted line around the perimeter of the Trend Viewer when you are using a Triggered Snapshot data log.

Like I said: it's obvious when you already know how it works !

What I haven't figured out, though, is how to do what I want: to stop the Trend Viewer when I get to the end of my process cycle, just like if I had pressed the '<' button, but leave the Data Log running.
 
What I haven't figured out, though, is how to do what I want: to stop the Trend Viewer when I get to the end of my process cycle, just like if I had pressed the '<' button, but leave the Data Log running.

I don't think the controls for the trend viewer are exposed in such a way to allow you to programmatically pause the display.

If you could do it with what I know try:

1. Duplicate the trend screen in a frozen state, and using a GotoPage command to switch to it. To make it appear frozen, you might even have to make a copy of the log file and set the new trend to the new file...

2. There is that batch logging thingy that merits investigation, but it's hard to do without real hardware...
 
Stephen from Red Lion Technical Support confirmed this morning that the Trend Viewer's buttons are only for touchscreen use and are not exposed to Tags or Functions.

The Trend Viewer pause was a 'nice to have' feature rather than something totally necessary.

A workaround I am considering is to find a way to trigger a remote 'WGET' of the screen as a 'screen print' report.

Thanks for your help, everyone !
 
except you can have more than one Data Log in Crimson.

One other hidden feature...well not really hidden but seldom understood is that you don't need more than one data log to have separate trends. The pen mask is a binary selection of the values that you want to show in your trend display. So you can log values A, B , and C then have one trend for A and C and another for A and B out of the same log.

trendview.png
 
Thanks for pointing that out, Tim.

As I'm getting deeper into datalogging on the G3, I'm encountering its shortcomings as well. Not everything is intuitive, and I've managed to crash the terminal and find a few things that don't work well a couple of times already.

But the benefits of batch logging, custom batch names, start/stop control, event comment insertion, and easy FTP and HTTP access to the logs are huge.
 

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