Red Lion: Have tag display number AND string?

I'm trying to set up a Red Lion display where the operator can enter a batch number on the screen. However, the batch number will contain a series of letters and intermixed numbers.

What is the most efficient method to achieve this?

ABnewb said:

I'm trying to set up a Red Lion display where the operator can enter a batch number on the screen. However, the batch number will contain a series of letters and intermixed numbers.

What is the most efficient method to achieve this?

Click to expand...

Your variable will need to be a String type. I'm not sure about Red Lion specifics, but I'm pretty sure that will be possible.

Is this batch identifier (let's not call it a number, because it's no longer a number if there are characters in it) being written to a PLC? If so, does the PLC support string data types?

The Red Lion 'C-like' programming language gives you a pretty good environment for parsing the Batch Code, if you need to pull out important values or check it for validity inside the HMI before sending it to the PLC.

Can you post an example of the batch code you need to enter, and describe what values you need to extract from it ?

The batch identifier isn't being sent to a PLC, it's just being stored in the Red Lion control to hold basic product identifiers, such as container weights. A typical batch number can be anywhere from 5-12 characters long and can have any number of string/number combinations.

I can use a string tag, but I would always need to surround the entry with double quotations, and I know that I can't rely on the operators to remember that. If I try to enter an integer without surrounding it in quotes, it throws an error.

ABnewb said:

The batch identifier isn't being sent to a PLC, it's just being stored in the Red Lion control to hold basic product identifiers, such as container weights.

Click to expand...

This is good. String tags are easier to handle in the HMI.

A typical batch number can be anywhere from 5-12 characters long and can have any number of string/number combinations.

I can use a string tag, but I would always need to surround the entry with double quotations, and I know that I can't rely on the operators to remember that. If I try to enter an integer without surrounding it in quotes, it throws an error.

Click to expand...

I have never encountered this when using a cstring tag type. You will have to give use more detail to understand what you are doing. If possible, zip and attach you crimson file.

I can use a string tag, but I would always need to surround the entry with double quotations, and I know that I can't rely on the operators to remember that. If I try to enter an integer without surrounding it in quotes, it throws an error.

Click to expand...

The operator won't have to enter double quotes, it is just when you are programming that you get that error. When you define a tag as a string then anything entered in that box in runtime is treated as a string.