Inductive Automation

Msut419

Member
Join Date
Feb 2018
Location
new york
Posts
15
Hello everybody, i wanted to check in with anyone here that has used Inductive Automation Ignition HMI software.

Is it as good as it looks to be?

Is it something you would trust to run a plant on?

Is it easy to learn and deploy a new project?

And if you have any other side notes you want to add fell free to drop them in, i'm interested in all the information u have.
 
Hello everybody, i wanted to check in with anyone here that has used Inductive Automation Ignition HMI software.

Is it as good as it looks to be?

I believe it is.

Is it something you would trust to run a plant on?

Sure. The first application I developed ran for a year and a half without a hiccup. I finally got a call from the operator. He forgot the Windows login and the PC had rebooted. Still running flawlessly 3 years later.

Is it easy to learn and deploy a new project?

It is different, but there are free online courses to bring you up to speed. The online training has been good enough for me all by itself, and they have a pretty healthy online forum for the oddball questions that do arise. Most of the differences are positive ones, but you will definitely want to go through at least some of the courses before you get started, and work through others while you are developing.

https://inductiveuniversity.com/courses/all

And if you have any other side notes you want to add fell free to drop them in, i'm interested in all the information u have.

I have had nothing but positive experiences with Ignition.

One thing that I love about it is the fact that it uses SVG (scalable vector graphics) which means I can resize the application window and have control over what happens to the objects it contains. I can allow them to also resize, decide what the upper and lower limits are for each window size, anchor objects to any edge or center them, etc. The folks who designed Ignition give you a lot of power and make it very easy to use.

Another great feature is User Data Types with parameters. Most of the equipment I have worked with has been SLC and Micrologix, and if the data objects are laid out in a pattern, I can create a UDT with parameters that describe the pattern so making multiple similar objects becomes very easy without having to go in and edit every single PLC address.

Ignition uses python for scripting which I find to be very weird but super powerful too. I had one situation where I needed to create a text file with some data every night at midnight and it took me some time to be able to create that file exactly as needed by the customer legacy accounting software. I found myself asking questions about scripting on the IA forum where I got great answers since I had no prior experience with Python.

The tools provided in the Ignition designer for building scripts are awesome and for most common every day things you either won't need any scripts or you can build them easily within the editor and/or test environment.
 
Download it, and try it.

There are some things that don't work in the trial version, but not much, and the trial period is two hours, but can be reset an unlimited number of times.


I personally love love love Ignition, especially after fighting with FTView all these years.



Some favorite points:



There is no "Client" software, so nothing to install on client PC's at all, unless you want the "Local Client Fallback" option, which installs a limited gateway and project on a client. (Much much cheaper than FTView, or WW).


It runs on just about any OS... Essentially anything that runs Java; Windows XP 32, Windows 7 64, Windows 10 64, Linux, even Android Os.


It is fast, and you have some serious control over item scan times if you want it, on a tag by tag basis. I especially like the "Leased" tag scan type -- If nothing is actively looking at a tag, it will update at whatever slow rate you like, just to keep it fresh, but if a display or script uses it, it will dynamically switch to a faster scan rate.


Browsing AB Processor tags is about 50 times faster than RSLinx Enterprise is, and it works fine with Kepware UA servers as well.


Tags can be added and removed from historical trending without having to restart anything.


It doesn't crash.


The available scripting makes just about anything possible.


Access levels are easily controlled, and it integrates very nicely with Active Directory.


Templates are simply amazing, and kind of force you to do more structured actual Tag Layouts.


I really cannot praise Ignition highly enough.
 
Yes, a great tool! Using it on some smaller applications with good success.

Support is great, which is getting harder to find in some products today.

Their web learning is nice to get you thru a basic operating configuration.
 
And if you have any other side notes you want to add fell free to drop them in, i'm interested in all the information u have.
Feature-wise, it's going to do whatever you need. If most people can get the big vendor HMIs to do what is needed than Ignition can definitely work.

But there are so many things OTHER than the software itself that matter a lot.
Can you tell us a little bit about how you plan to use Ignition?

Ex.
What do you want Ignition to do for you? Problems to solve?
Number of screens, clients, tags?
Is this for your site? a customer's site? Machine builder or integrator?

Why are you thinking about using Ignition?
What are you using now that makes you want to switch?
What did you see/hear about Ignition that got your interest?​

Give us a little a more detail and you'll get more specific opinions.
 
I am a converted Ignition fanboy as well. Its better than it looks, I'll put it in any facility I can, it's crazy easy to deploy and manage. Of course, it can get complex depending on how large you need to scale it, but so is any other software.

Free video courses and 2 hour demo make it a breeze to start development. < 15 mins to install, configure and deploy a template project.
 
Java itself becomes a pain in any software I've run that requires it. constantly needing updates, security warnings, etc.

How does Ignition handle that kind of stuff, or does it use its own java runtime?
 
Hello everybody, i wanted to check in with anyone here that has used Inductive Automation Ignition HMI software.

Is it as good as it looks to be?

Is it something you would trust to run a plant on?

Is it easy to learn and deploy a new project?

And if you have any other side notes you want to add fell free to drop them in, i'm interested in all the information u have.


Its a great stable software. I would say it is easily the most stable software I have worked with.


I would say there is a learning curve if you want to unlock the true potential of the software. There is alot of easily setup stuff for beginners, but the real power is in interacting with the database easily and also the powerful scripting.


The weakness with Ignition is with no HTML support. This makes the mobile module clunky, so clunky that I dont even use it. They do offer a web-dev module where you can publish html and it does work good for stuff, but not graphics. They are supposed to come out with an html version called perspective. Its supposed to be out later this year, which hopefully it will.
 
Java itself becomes a pain in any software I've run that requires it. constantly needing updates, security warnings, etc.

How does Ignition handle that kind of stuff, or does it use its own java runtime?

Each Ignition release is based on the latest Java release.

Obviously, installing or updating the Ignition server (Gateway) will require a Java update on each participating machine, server(s) or client(s)...A royal pain indeed...:D...
 
Is it as good as it looks to be?
It depends how you are looking at it.

Is it something you would trust to run a plant on?
Yes. I think Tesla and Amazon do [citation needed], although Musk has been complaining about automation recently, so maybe it is ignition's fault :p

Is it easy to learn and deploy a new project?
Yes

Questions for others.
Does it have 'compare project 1 to project 2 and list differences'?
Can you printout a report of :
For each tag which screen is it on?
For each screen, which tags does it have?

I have only done the uni course and evaluated it a few times, never ended up implementing it.

It has its faults like any other SCADA package, just probably less of them, and less inertia to get faults fixed if you tell IA about them.

You tend to deal direct with IA in California rather than through some software distribution company who doesn't know much about the product apart from the price of the most expensive version.
 
What happens when you run an older application on a newer version of Java?


Each Ignition release since 7.8 (or maybe before) can be set to run only against a particular java version; or multiple versions.


I have mine set to run only against java 1.7 or 1.8, one of those must be installed. It doesn't matter if earlier or later java runtimes are installed, as long as one of those two are.
 
Sounds like a solid software option to moving forward with my current system.

My system now was built in 1998 and never updated, i started working hear about a year ago and have had nothing but issues so we are looking to update. I am running all 90s series GE PLCs and some AB throughout the plant.

I have 11 clients right now and would up to ~15 with a new system.

The data base functionality would be huge because we keep historical data for years and use it extensively through a portal server to view that data in graph or spreadsheet form. Right now all tag data is ported to both a GE historian server and a SQL server.

In total the SCADA right now pulls ~30000 tags with a scan rate of ~95ms
 

Similar Topics

Hello guys, Sorry for that, I decided not to wast yours and my time. Thanks
Replies
7
Views
2,924
Inductive Automation is announcing Ignition 8.1 today at "virtual" ICC. I'll miss seeing everyone in California. Registration is free online. Big...
Replies
0
Views
1,233
Inductive Automation Ignition unable to trend small numbers . Trending stops working below 5e -9 . 5e -9 = 0.000000005 . We are operating...
Replies
13
Views
3,055
All, I know this type of question has been asked (and sometimes answered) ad infinitum but after looking I'm still stuck and could use some help...
Replies
19
Views
6,203
Hello All, I am looking for a way to get the data/information from METASYS BAS of Johnson Controls. I would like to get this data into Inductive...
Replies
4
Views
2,342
Back
Top Bottom