Trouble with reading strings from PLC in Panelview alarm messages

Join Date
May 2013
Location
big rapids
Posts
6
Hello all. I am working with a CompactLogix running version 30.12, and a Panelview Plus 700 running version 9.0. The customer wants me to read strings from the PLC for the alarm messages instead of directly typing all of the messages in on FactoryTalk. The issue I'm having is that when I insert a string variable into the alarm message, it shows up as the literal string tag like /*S:0 {[MAIN]Alarms.Alarm[8].Text}*/, instead of the String that is stored in that tag. I have attached a few images, and the first image shows how I have the alarm messages set up. The second shows the tags in the PLC and the string that they store. And finally, the third shows what some of the alarms randomly show up as. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. It's really random.

I should also mention that it only seems to happen on Alarm Status List objects. I do not have this issue with Alarm Lists, which is really puzzling to me. Does anyone have any ideas on what could be causing this? It looks like it was an issue back in version 6.x that was supposed to be fixed, based on my googling. Obviously not. Any help is greatly appreciated!

1.jpg 2.PNG 3.PNG
 
I think it's doing exactly what it's supposed to....the alarm message field isn't for a tag. It's for the literal text to be displayed.

I think you'll need to build something with one or a few String Display fields on it, depending on what kind of functionality the customer wants on their alarms.

The built-in alarm functions is so flexible, I wonder why they want you to do it this way.....
 
I do this routinely and it works fine. You alarm messages appear to be correct. The only thing I don't do is have my string in a UDT, its just in an array of strings. But I can't imagine that would make a difference.
 
I do this routinely and it works fine. You alarm messages appear to be correct. The only thing I don't do is have my string in a UDT, its just in an array of strings. But I can't imagine that would make a difference.
Hmm that's curious. I did try it with just an array of strings instead too, and it's the same issue, unfortunately :/
 
I do this routinely and it works fine. You alarm messages appear to be correct. The only thing I don't do is have my string in a UDT, its just in an array of strings. But I can't imagine that would make a difference.

js, are you saying that you put a tag name in the message field and it brings in the tag value rather than just showing it literally? I've never seen this before and just wanted to make sure I understand how you're doing that....I didn't think that was even possible!
 
js, are you saying that you put a tag name in the message field and it brings in the tag value rather than just showing it literally? I've never seen this before and just wanted to make sure I understand how you're doing that....I didn't think that was even possible!
It works for me too... just only sometimes. I've had my co-worker test it on other panelviews and he says that this works as well. It seems to be only not working on my specific panelview. I wonder if it is a 9.0 bug?

I found out that if there are no alarm triggers active when the panelview boots up, then they display correctly. So I programmed in a heartbeat monitor for the HMI that turns off all alarm triggers if the HMI loses connectivity. This for now seems to have resolved my issue. It would be nice if it just worked like it seems to for everyone else though :)

This method's benefit is that you don't need to recompile and download your panelview program if you want to add in a few alarms, which is convenient.
 
js, are you saying that you put a tag name in the message field and it brings in the tag value rather than just showing it literally? I've never seen this before and just wanted to make sure I understand how you're doing that....I didn't think that was even possible!

Yes, exactly. I then just edit the contents of the string array in the PLC for my alarm messages.
 
It works for me too... just only sometimes. I've had my co-worker test it on other panelviews and he says that this works as well. It seems to be only not working on my specific panelview. I wonder if it is a 9.0 bug?

I found out that if there are no alarm triggers active when the panelview boots up, then they display correctly. So I programmed in a heartbeat monitor for the HMI that turns off all alarm triggers if the HMI loses connectivity. This for now seems to have resolved my issue. It would be nice if it just worked like it seems to for everyone else though :)

This method's benefit is that you don't need to recompile and download your panelview program if you want to add in a few alarms, which is convenient.

I have yet to see a PV that has 9.0 firmware. I use 9.0 FTview but I compile for 8.0 or lower. Have you tried compiling for something lower?
 
KingPresident casts : Thread Resurrection level 10!


Got a call to work on a HMI whose alarm banner shows the literal varaible reference, and not the string text stored in the PLC.

How do you accomplish this? I'd like to keep that in the PLC if I can.

For now I'm just replacing each fault code on the .MER file. I have FTV ME v11 and always flash firmware to 8.2
 

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