FTView Point Disappointment

[Snyd1]

Start rant..

So in a previous gig a coworker setup a skid with FactoryTalk View point and I thought it was kind of neat being able to load a touchscreen from a tablet pc what have you.

Well its been a minute and finally got around an OIT for the first time at my new job, made a nice couple page terminal with gradient buttons, user login nothing that advanced just on/off controls, some multistate indicators yaddayadda.

Have another similar one that might come up in the future customer would like to have OIT and PC control, said that would be doable since PVP+ allows a single view point to be ran on the network.

Go and publish the screens on the current job just to find out it looks like trash.

Then I come across this little artical

FactoryTalk ViewPoint 8.00 and higher: Unsupported FactoryTalk View ME features

https://rockwellautomation.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/753388

Pretty big let down.

 

[janner_10]

Here's the problem: FactoryTalk

 

[Geospark]

You mean FactoryBalk?

Point is pointless, for now. Too many standard features not supported to make it anything other than a dumb bell or broken whistle. In time it might grow teeth, but I wouldn't be asking it to open my beer anytime soon.

G.

 

[Snyd1]

Yeah, doesn't even seem like something that should have been released. Let alone something they could possibly expect customers to buy additional seats for. Thing is alpha at best in my opinion.

Maybe I will luck out and the other project won't pan out... More likely be explaining why the PC version of the controls look so lame compared to the OIT and lack of features. Or I could completely dumb down their screens and hope they never visit their sisters.

 

[rupej]

Yeah it's pretty much worthless, except maybe for very minimal read-only applications.

What about running View Station ME on his laptop? That an option? Should look as good as a real HMI and doesn't require the hardware.

 

[Snyd1]

Might have to look into the cost of a lower end license, and their duration. Likely a better approach. Thanks for the thought

 

[jkerekes]

If its a PanelView Plus, of a recent vintage, it comes with a VNC server. then you can look at it remotely.