Ideas to hookup desktop computers to a monorail conveyor.

padees

Member
Join Date
Aug 2011
Location
Michigan
Posts
869
Hi all,
This company has a monorail conveyor running thru their plant. Powder coat factory.

Recently installed was a ML1100, PF525 and a Red Lion G304K200. This is just to run the VFD and a few handshakes with other equipment. The control is in the engineer’s office, and they basically set the speed with ramp buttons on the little HMI. Easy. I did have punch in the number, but he thought that was too small.


Well, one of our electricians said we can easily put this on all your computers to set speed and display actual. They want it on at least 3 computers, and it would have to go over their internal WiFi
.
What our electrician meant by his statement was that this would just pop up on your screen without having a clue, and the current hardware.


I did consider a Graphite G07 and use the web server, but not sure if too many devices on it all the time would cause a traffic jam on the network, or with flaky browsers. They do work nice, but I’ve had issues in the past.


Any thoughts?
 
The G304K and 307K do not have a web server as far as I know. So you may have to upgrade to a G07 or G306 like you said or maybe use a too like AdvancedHMI and make them a simple application.
 
It would require a re-write of the HMI, but the C-More EA9 HMI's have a built in web server that will deploy a executable on the PC, no configuration required.

I've done that with PC's, Amazon Fire tablets (cheap and easy to replace), Android phones and even a "Android TV" box to do a 50" touch screen HMI. I've been pretty happy with it, though the C-More's are a bit more limited compared to what you get with the "big name" HMI's as far as icon sets and the like go.
 
Red Lion has the new line of CR3000 HMI units that you can get in a 4" model that might be nearly a drop in replacement and supports the Web Server feature. Crimson 3.1 software is free and will import your .cd3 file.

I bought 5 of the CR1000 7" units (CR1000 doesn't support advanced features like web server) and it was a long lead time to get them delivered. I think Red Lion had some issues with the new product deployment or may have gotten more orders than anticipated.

The pricing is not on the website and I don't recall what the prices looked like for the CR3000, but the CR1000 is right in line with what the Kadets cost. I was told that the CR series will replace the Kadets which will become unavailable in about a year or so.

http://redlion.net/product/43-wides...b-host-usb-device-web-server-and-data-logging
 
You could easily create an AdvancedHMI application to display the values from the ML1100 on any PC. If your PLC is directly accessible through the wireless connection from these computers, then it could be done with no additional hardware or software cost.

To give an idea of what is involved:

- Download and install Visual Studio 2017 Community Edition and select the Desktop Application workload
https://www.visualstudio.com/vs/community/

- Download and extract the AdvancedHMI software
http://www.advancedhmi.com/

- Open Visual Studio then open the AdvancedHMI.sln file
- From the menu selecte Build->Build Solution
- From Solution Explorer, double click MainForm to open
- From the Toolbox, add an EthernetIPforSLCMicroCom driver to the MainForm
- Set the IPAddress property to the address of your PLC
- From The Toolbox, add a DigitalPanelMeter to the MainForm
- Set the PLCAddressValue to the register in your PLC, such as N7:0 (if you also want to edit the value, set PLCAddressKeypad to the same address)
- Run the application

Once the application is built the way you want, you can then copy the AdvancedHMI\bin\Debug directory to the other PCs. From there just open the AdvancedHMI.exe application
 
Last edited:
From personal experience I say STOP!!!

Giving speed control of the line to several individuals is NOT a wise decision.
one operator says slow it down, one speeds it up, and no one agrees.
in the mean time, your paint process is worthless and your product and company reputation suffers.

leave the control in the hands of one person and let them decide on the speed and let them take the heat for bad paint jobs.

if they are still dead set on doing that, put a keyed switch on each panel and program it so that only a switch on condition will allow changes. Also log in the person who made the change and make them accountable.

regards,
james
 
Thanks for the feedback.

The thing is that the control is in the engineers office. His desk is six feet away. The line operator is a good 100' plus away. They have to walk back and forth about 12 times per shift to adjust the speed.

I suggested putting another G304K200 at their station and hard wiring the Ethernet.

They thought about it, but the owner says he wants this available on any computer in the facility, ESPECIALLY HIS!!!

So, it would be on his computer, the engineers computer, which is six feet away from the HMI, and on the plant floor.

He's not a fun person to talk to. Worse than a really grouchy bear.

I'm trying to avoid that place.
 
They thought about it, but the owner says he wants this available on any computer in the facility, ESPECIALLY HIS!!!

So, it would be on his computer, the engineers computer, which is six feet away from the HMI, and on the plant floor.

He's not a fun person to talk to. Worse than a really grouchy bear.

I'm trying to avoid that place.
Create a simple AdvancedHMI application and put it on all the computers, then maybe the owner will become a happy clam because you gave him exactly what he wants without having to spend any extra money on hardware or software.
 
Do you have anything that could act as a web server (IIS or apache) on the industrial network?

You could use adancedhmi as a data director, a simple advanced hmi vb project runs and reads a text file then writes the value in that file to the plc. Your webpage writes the value you choose to this text file. This can all be done for free and fairly easy depending on your coding knowledge.
 
AdvancedHMI

This is the most logical solution to this very illogical problem. I don't know why anyone that can't see the equipment would ever want to make a change.... but if you must, AdvancedHMI is the best solution. You can have it running in a few minutes and it's FREE!
 
I'd vote for Advanced HMI too. I have it running my ridiculously over-engineered balcony watering system on a PC about the size of a large USB stick. It's great because even though the tiny PC isn't powerful enough to do the development, all I have to do is do the development on my laptop and drop the files onto it with TeamViewer, and away it goes - no software to install, no drivers, no licenses!

It'd be just as easy here - write a small application, put the files on a USB, and copy them to any computer that they want to access it on. As long as that computer has a network connection to the PLC, you're away!

Of course, the question of can vs. should is a whole different one, and I'll leave the problems with that to one side for now ;)
 
Thanks for all the feedback. I have test driven Advanced HMI in the past and like it.

I most likely will not be hanging around here long enough to implement Archie's handiwork on this project.
 

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