1Hertz led on Siemens HMI

[XxLinkxX]

Open the HMI tag table. The "Acquisition cycle" how often the HMI polls the PLC for the value of the tag. If you scroll right it should be in the tag table, or it is under "Settings" in the tag properties.

Thank you very much, took me a while to find, (didn't know you can scroll to the right on the table.

Also I ended up using two timers to flash it.

For the second method you mentioned, you sent me a link of the video that lets me change the duty cycle time, how come when I activate it, the 1 hertz cycle does not work. meaning it does not flash. or do I have to set up some ladder logic to do so? I just put a switch ties to the output cycle. It should flash if its 1 hertz.

 

[mk42]

Thank you very much, took me a while to find, (didn't know you can scroll to the right on the table.

Also I ended up using two timers to flash it.

For the second method you mentioned, you sent me a link of the video that lets me change the duty cycle time, how come when I activate it, the 1 hertz cycle does not work. meaning it does not flash. or do I have to set up some ladder logic to do so? I just put a switch ties to the output cycle. It should flash if its 1 hertz.

The default tag setting on the HMI is only 1 sec, so it probably wouldn't flash until you sped that up. Now that you know where to change the update rate, change just that tag to much faster than you need it to be, like 100ms, to see if it updates then.

As a general note, you should configure all of your tags to be as slow as you can let them be. For tags with fast animations, especially if there is movement, faster updates can be needed for them to appear smooth. However, faster updates = much more communications, and you can quickly reach a point where the system gets overloaded if you simply set all the tags to 100ms.

You should see it flash if you monitor the PLC code. Monitoring isn't 100% in time to the code, but it should catch enough cycles to see it at least changing state.

 

[JesperMP]

It doesn't have to be, I guess. I've never used "flashing" so how do I go about doing that?

For the screen element in question, you go to the animation properties, and add an appearance animation. You have to link a tag that controls the animation. There will be a number of lines each representing the values the tag has at a given time. For each possible value (or rangeof values), you can specify a foreground color, background color and if flashing must be on or off. A BOOL tag can only have the values 0 or 1.

 

[XxLinkxX]

The default tag setting on the HMI is only 1 sec, so it probably wouldn't flash until you sped that up. Now that you know where to change the update rate, change just that tag to much faster than you need it to be, like 100ms, to see if it updates then.

As a general note, you should configure all of your tags to be as slow as you can let them be. For tags with fast animations, especially if there is movement, faster updates can be needed for them to appear smooth. However, faster updates = much more communications, and you can quickly reach a point where the system gets overloaded if you simply set all the tags to 100ms.

You should see it flash if you monitor the PLC code. Monitoring isn't 100% in time to the code, but it should catch enough cycles to see it at least changing state.

Thanks a lot for your help. I got it to work by using both timers and the clock bit. It was refreshing to learn both ways, although the clock bit is a lot easier and faster. As you said you don't want to increase the acquisition cycle as it can cause problems, so I ended up changing my frequency to 0.5 hertz. worked flawlessly and was being registered on the HMI.( I did also manage to see the 1 hertz by changing the acquisition cycle speed.

 

[XxLinkxX]

For the screen element in question, you go to the animation properties, and add an appearance animation. You have to link a tag that controls the animation. There will be a number of lines each representing the values the tag has at a given time. For each possible value (or rangeof values), you can specify a foreground color, background color and if flashing must be on or off. A BOOL tag can only have the values 0 or 1.

Thanks jesper, I learned how to flash and use the animation. :site: