@Boolean Requirement

This is more of a rant than a dire problem, but stuff like this bugs me.

I have a UDT with a 64 element Bool Array as one of the structures. I have not dealt with a bool array that large before and I find that in the Proficy iFix software, using Kepware IGS as the driver, I can address elements 0-31 using the syntax Channel.Device.Tagname.X.

However when I address Elements 32 and beyond I have to use the syntax Channel.Device.Tagname[XX]@Boolean. It's notable that this syntax works for the first 32 Elements as well.

Using Kepware OPC QuickClient I can see that Kepware itself is perfectly happy using the bracket syntax without the @boolean suffix for the entire range, but not happy using the "dot" syntax at all.

So my conclusion thus far is that when the .XX syntax gets parsed by "it", "it" is interpreted as a word.bit datatype and thus would have a 32 bit limitation. But when parsed using the bracket syntax "it" assumes a Float datatype (the Kepware default for this device) and the @Boolean suffix overrides that assumption. All of that makes sense.

My question becomes ... what is "it"? Is this a Proficy platform limitation or is it a Kepware limitation? It would be more consistent and cleaner to just interpret the "dot" syntax as being an element of whatever preceded it instead have having to add a suffix to the tagname to override it when you exceed the 31st element. I'm curious why that is not the case and which part of this interaction is to blame.

Anybody know?

As you found out, sometime the @Boolean is not needed but there's no hard and fast rule on why it's needed. I think it has to be with how iFix interface with the OPC server.

It's not so much of an issue with the OPC server, as you found that the Quick Client doesn't have an issue but rather with the specific client, in this case, iFix that seems to be the issue. I'm not a fan of iFix. While it's quite powerful if one cares to invest the time to learn all the in and out of it, it seems to be always a DOS program that's been patched 100x to get to where it is today.

btw. which specific version of iFix are you having issue with?

and for people who don't know, IGS is rebranded Kepware.

harryting said:

it seems to be always a DOS program that's been patched 100x to get to where it is today.

Click to expand...

From the looks of it, I think they stopped patching it during the Windows NT days... I mostly mean the utility to configure the SCADA station (forgot the name of it).

Yea, I feel the same way about iFix. This is v5.9

TheWaterboy said:

Yea, I feel the same way about iFix. This is v5.9

Click to expand...

Have you had a chance to play with 6.0? I was given a development license by GE to play with it and assess how good it was or whether the problems that I complained about (ghost alarms, inexistent redundancy, painful modification) were sorted, but never got around to do it with all the **** I was dealing with.



From the outside it looks better (I doubt that they offer the faceplates and icons) and the "Excel like PDB" sounded both good and slightly concerning, but if the application setup is still the same with ambiguous questions that destroy the security settings then it's just lipstick on a pig.

I have licenses for all of them, I have a 6.1 box spun up but have not done anything with it yet, the structure underneath doesn't appear to have changed much. just lipstick as you suggest. they are proud of the new interface they are doing, Hub I believe it is called, but its still the same platform underneath. annoying workarounds are needed for important things like redundancy...
I just wanted to be certain it was iFix and not Kepware. We are discussing a change and this is yet another bullet item on the naughty list.

TheWaterboy said:

I just wanted to be certain it was iFix and not Kepware. We are discussing a change and this is yet another bullet item on the naughty list.

Click to expand...

You should have enough ammunition to take on a whole country...

Do they demand that the server where the licensing portal must be connected to the internet at all times too? They made that demand for the new versions of iFix when I was discussing with them and I simply told them "Thanks for making this decision for me. iFix will not be considered for this plant from this day forward. Thank you for your time and we can end the meeting.".

All of a suddent it was perfectly possible to have it disconnected from the internet and license the software with a USB stick. LOL

No, the iFix licensing is slightly less intrusive and far obstructive than Rockwells - which to me is a really bloated pig of a design, but an iFix dongle is readily available and actually easier than Rockwells' .

The sales staff from iFix has always been far less than ideal... The support portal has been terrible.... you know, just about everything about iFix has been less than ideal. If it wasn't for an installed base... I don't see how they sell new stuff.

I suppose the ordeal of changing to another platform is all that keeps them in place. I'm not a big fan of Rockwells bloated design either but sadly I feel that Ignition, as great as it is, is destined to be bought by someone who will decimate it once the base is there. PTC or Emerson I would imagine.

One thing I liked about GE was that every now and then they'd have nice deals on licensing to move people from what they had. To upgrade to the latest version (a silly price), they quoted me a 50% discount. I still pursued Ignition until the point I left.



I can see how Emerson would have an interest in getting something better for their DCS offering... they use iFix after all.

Well, I just did an upgrade from 5.5 to 6.1. I didn't play much with the new features.

I really wanted to move to a different platform but the original vendor provided program got tons and tons of faceplates (think PlantPAX) that conversion would be a nightmare.

I already "broke" the GE Licensing and they have no answer for me because I used a temporary wifi dongle during install. Now there's no way for me to add licensing to that server no matter how many install/reinstall and all their tech support said is that do I have the latest version, .... yes. I do.

Wonderware and Fix used to be the top two HMI and thankfully we got a lot more options now. If I'm specifying a system today there's no way I go with either.

Intellution started out with Fix Dynamics (Dos Based),
then migrated to Fix32 (WinNT).
Both were solid platforms.
Then they rewrote everything for iFix (using Visual Basic type scripting), no upgrade path from Fix32. My old company dropped them after that.

Then Emerson bought them to use the HMI package with DeltaV.
When I helped install a Delta-V version 11.0, Emerson blamed all the errors on the iFix graphics. They have been talking about abandoning iFix for many years, but have not.

Then sold it to GE.

But Emerson just bought the PLC/PAC line leaving the iFix line to run itself under ... GE ? Whoever it is under makes them appear to be independent from GE but still doing nothing to fix the underlying architecture instead applying more lipstick.
Like Harry said, the installs I see are upgrades of existing so none of the lipstick gets used.

Emerson Delta-V bought Intellution. Used iFix as the graphics for Delta-V, then sold everything to GE, but kept the "rights" to use it in Delta-V. So now Emerson has made tweaks to the version in Delta-V, and GE has continued the development of iFix. I did an upgrade from 2.2 to 5.5 a couple of years ago. Only upgraded because an Old WinNT server died. Same basic package inside, no real changes.