TIA Portal V13 SP1 Comfort HMI Pop-up windows

Hello,

I'm looking for the best way to have different data displayed on a pop-up based on an index number. For example: Imagine that I have 10 Valves that all have the same controls and I'd like to use the same pop-up to control all 10 of them based on an index number.

In days gone by I would have defined a UDT in the PLC, made 10 instances of it and used the index number in a script to calculate pointers to the data in the PLC. I could still do this with absolute addressing but not with symbolic.

Can you multiplex a UDT? i.e. If I declared an internal tag UDT for the HMI and used the index tag to multiplex multiple UDTs in the PLC?

Would it be easier to use a faceplate based on a UDT? The same applies how do you dynamically pass it the right UDT in runtime?

Thanks in advance,

Nick

Is it necessary to display more than 1 display at the same time? If not you can handle it in the plc. Depending on the index move the required data into an area the the HMI reads.

Using multiplexed tags sometimes has limitations. It seems like certain features work fine, but others like buttons seem to not let you used multiplexed tags.

You may have more luck with indirect addressing. With Symbolic, instead of pointers you use arrays. You make an array of your UDT, and then put an index in the array.

DeKemp's suggestion is also good, where you do the multiplexing in the PLC, instead of in the HMI. More work, but more flexible.

These kind of things are always better to be solved in the plc. It's more reliable and if you change the brand of hmi the likely hood that it works is far greater.

I would use 1 DB, to show all the status of the valve/motors (1 int/dint per object).

Then if you click on one of the valves it sends a number to the plc, which interns constantly copies the valve/motor details into an area that is used for the controls in this case the pop-up.

Obvious this would require some programming to get it to work but after that it doesn't matter how much valves/motors you got. And in the next project your r/d is already done.

Thanks for the replies.

I think it's time for a fiddle.

Nick