FactoryTalk View Studio - SE w/PlantPax Setup

DarrenG

Member
Join Date
Dec 2016
Location
London
Posts
74
Hi folks,

I'm beginning to pull my hair out over this so if someone could shed some light on what's going on I'd be grateful.

We bought FactoryTalk View Studio SE Edition with PlantPax a few months ago and I've tried to import all the PlantPax images and global objects etc a few times to get the hang of it before we do training but I must be doing something wrong because the global objects and displays are just full of boxes or lines or question marks.

The instructions say you must import the image files first, then global objects followed by whatever faceplates/displays you need at the time and then macros. Simple right? Apparently not, I've done this at least 5 times and I'm either losing the plot or I'm missing something...I'm definitely not ruling out the possibility that I'm losing the plot either.

There are multiple folders within the PlantPax add on that contain images, global objects etc so at first I tried just importing the files from the 'process objects library' folder to see if that worked as it seems to be the main one. In that folder it had images, let's say around 20 global objects pages, a few faceplates/displays and a macro I believe so I thought surely all the files needed to display the global objects are in this one folder. That didn't work so I went on to import absolutely every image from every folder and the global objects and displays will still not display correctly.

Has anyone else come across this before? I will try upload some pics but in the past any pics I've uploaded have been poor quality for some reason :/

faceplate1.PNG global object 2.jpg global object1.jpg
 
I've used PlantPAx and haven't seen that issue. What version of SE and what version of PlantPAx?
 
But you need to have the corresponding AOI in your program and configure the parameters of the PlantPAx grafix objects before they will work.
 
What do you mean configure the parameters of the graphics? In the picture in my original post 'global object1' you can barely see what anything is, that can't be right surely? I don't see how not having the correct AOI in the code should have that much of an impact on the graphics, or for the pump in my last post to display as just a circular line, unless I'm mistaken. Sure it might not work correctly but it just doesn't seem right, it looks as if I'm missing image files or something but I've imported everything that was in the PlantPAx folder. Did the global objects look like that when you used them?
 
What do you mean configure the parameters of the graphics? In the picture in my original post 'global object1' you can barely see what anything is, that can't be right surely? I don't see how not having the correct AOI in the code should have that much of an impact on the graphics, or for the pump in my last post to display as just a circular line, unless I'm mistaken. Sure it might not work correctly but it just doesn't seem right, it looks as if I'm missing image files or something but I've imported everything that was in the PlantPAx folder. Did the global objects look like that when you used them?

You are mistaken.
The graphics absolutely MUST reference valid tags in the PLC, or everything breaks.

And make a VM copy of your development environment there, and use only that for your SE/PAX/PLC work. Otherwise, if you upgrade ANY Rockwell component or software, even completely unrelated, it will completely break your Studio application.
 
I think we might be talking about two separate things so I just want to make sure. Thanks to you both for your help so far, I'm just not used to this package at all at all and if we are talking about the same thing then I'm baffled.

The pictures I originally posted are from the global objects library pages which should be copied into the development space and then assigned tags. What's confusing me is that you're saying they need to be assigned tags to work, which is fair enough in the development space, but in the library they're not displaying correctly (or not what I'm used to anyway) to begin with making it impossible to know what I want to use from the very get go as I can't see what they are, if that makes sense?

It's the equivalent of going to the default symbol library to select a tank or a pipe or whatever and the tank/pipe just being a square box with a question mark in the middle. I can understand what you mean about it not working without a tag during runtime, but I can't get my head around why the graphics would not show a finished representation of what the item should be in the library.

The pic below is of the 'Process Interlock Objects' page in the library where I'm supposed to go and decide what I want to use in the project and I genuinely haven't a clue what anything in there is or what I may or may not want to use because everything is either a tick or a question mark.

global objects 2.jpg
 
Right I did some digging on the internet and found a picture of what the library should look like. The title up on the top left doesn't display correctly in my library nor does any of the text for that matter so there is definitely something not quite right.

plantpax library.jpg
 
just out of curiosity what language is your application setup for US English or UK I have seen some strange things when I set my apps up for Canadian English and used prebuilt AOI's
 
labeledas: It's set up for UK English, I think that was the default language.

jkerekes: I'm just trying to see what is actually in the PlantPAx library and what makes it different to the default FactoryTalk symbol library/why we bought it. I'm not really concerned with test running anything at the moment, just seeing what's available before using it for a project, but it seems like the global objects aren't displaying correctly, and I'm trying to figure out why or if anyone has had something similar happen before.
 
Can you try to set up a new application for US English and import and see if they work, like I said I have seen weird issues using Canadian English using objects built with US English, shouldn't make a difference but I have seen it happen
 

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