Importing Tags into PanelView 1000 Performance Plus

Good afternoon, I am new to programming the PanelView series from AB and need some help with getting my tags to work on the HMI created by OEM.

I have added about 5 tags to my Studio logix 5000 v32 program. Then, I created numeric display* and tied these numeric displays* to those 5 tags by manually typing in the tag name into the "value" box in connection tab and left the polarity blank. After creating the runtime app, I downloaded into the HMI. I can see the numeric display box, but can't see the numbers from my PLC.

Also, another issue I'm having is I can't find a list of all the other tags being used on the HMI? When I double click any buttons that the OEM created, I can see the tag they used. So when I type in my tag in the same format for my numeric display, it did not show up with the value (I see 4 asteriks instead of my 4 numbers). If there is a database I can just open up and view all available tags so I can select one, that would be helpful as well. I thought clicking the 3 dots below "tag" in connections tab would load it up, but I only see two folders: one for the PLC, the other for system. The PLC folder is empty???

Any help appreciated, thanks.

*Edit

It sounds like you haven't setup the communications yet for your station. Near the bottom of the tree in the Explorer tab, you will see either RSLinx Enterprise or FactoryTalk Linx depending on the version you are running. Expand that and you will see Communication Setup. When you double click that the Communcation Setup menu appears. This is where you tell Studio where to find your tags.

In the Design (Local) tab you can set a path directly to the processor to browse for tags in the PLC itself. This path is going to be the path from your computer to the PLC. It is what will allow you to browse for tags in the online PLC and where you will see newly added tags appear when you refresh the folders. It also allows you to test your display or your entire application with values from the PLC.

The Runtime (Target) path is what the PanelView Plus will use to communicate with the PLC during runtime. If the PanelView is already in production, you probably don't need to mess with this tab. Any changes here could cause the PanelView to quit communicating with the processor, especially if you enable the "Replace communications" radio button in ME Transfer Utility. (I caused about a days downtime when I accidentally replaced the communications on a Panel that was using DH+.)

Below the shortcuts windows, you will see a line called Offline Tag File. Point this to the Logix program for the PLC and you can browse for tags that are in that file.

Once you setup the communications tabs, and assuming you put a file in the Offline Tag File, when you go into the tag browser you should see the option for online and offline tags when you expand the tree.

MikeyN said:

It sounds like you haven't setup the communications yet for your station.

Click to expand...

From the sounds of it the OEM set up the runtime communications already, OP is just trying to add to a functioning setup. As long as the proper format is followed, there shouldn't be an issue. Setting up the Design path or offline tag file could be used to confirm things though.

Do any errors pop up when the screen loads? iirc if the HMI tries and fails to read a tag it pops up a message, something like '[tagname] unresolved on [communication path].' If you aren't getting that it sounds to me like the HMI is accessing the tag fine but having issues displaying it (eg not enough space to display the full number).

I noticed it does not include any "local" tags, only the "controller" tags. Is that normal? Is there a way to pull my local tags also?