Red Lion HMI Advice

[uminded]

I have recently started using RedLions HMI's and the scripting is super helpful in making animations and all sorts of fancy functions. My issue is trying to develop re-usable widgets and what route to take.

1 - Is it preferable to have more simple widgets or a single complex one with some non-binding selection criteria? eg. I have a Push button with the required tag "pushed", the optional tags "status", "enable", and "mode". Mode selects the operational logic, colors, etc.

2 - When doing piping is there a trick to be able to change the color of an entire pipe section all at once? Right now I have a tag in the folder called "product" which selects 1-6 of the pipe image, that tag is set to follow a product name that sets that value.

3 - Online diagnostics. Right now I make a hidden button and drag ALL my tags on screen as a way to verify IO but I can not push buttons or see anything. Is there a way in Crimson 3.0/3.1 to "live view" other than the watch list? If that's it how can I add ALL tags to the watch list, not just one at a time?

4 - More generally, is there a free source of good HMI building blocks, images, etc freely available? The stock ones are fine but lack sometimes.

 

[OkiePC]

1 - Is it preferable to have more simple widgets or a single complex one with some non-binding selection criteria? eg. I have a Push button with the required tag "pushed", the optional tags "status", "enable", and "mode". Mode selects the operational logic, colors, etc.

I have a small handful of widgets. I am in the water industry so I have a widget for tanks. I generally do folder binding on widgets. I also have some for multi-function selectors, where there is one value driven by a group of buttons for things like "Hand, Off, Auto" , or "Pump 1, Pump 2, Both, Alternate". Using the folder binding with consistent tag naming makes populating the tags pretty easy. My 3 and 4 button widgets started out with fixed text and fixed values for their states, then I changed those to data items so I can change the button text as needed. I usually work with small screens like 7" so rather than just rely on the bevel button edges to indicate which one is pressed, I stick an indicator next to it.

2 - When doing piping is there a trick to be able to change the color of an entire pipe section all at once? Right now I have a tag in the folder called "product" which selects 1-6 of the pipe image, that tag is set to follow a product name that sets that value.

Use the Animated Image object found under Core Primitives. Set the number of images as the number of different colors you want. Use an expression or tag to drive the value corresponding to each image, and put the different colors of pipes in the images section. The built in pipe symbols each have many colors to choose from. For example: for a straight pipe, if you go to Symbols > Pipes, then click on the first image of a straight horizontal pipe, you will get all the different colors for that straight pipe. Once you have one pipe set up to animate based on a tag, copy and paste it for the reset of the pipe sections and replace the images with elbows or other symbols as needed.

3 - Online diagnostics. Right now I make a hidden button and drag ALL my tags on screen as a way to verify IO but I can not push buttons or see anything. Is there a way in Crimson 3.0/3.1 to "live view" other than the watch list? If that's it how can I add ALL tags to the watch list, not just one at a time?

I use the Web Server a lot. With 3.0 I used the emulator quite a bit even with its quirks. Now that I am using 3.1, I just put what I need on a screen and use the web server to access it. I can count on one hand the number of times I have used the watch window. It is so easy and quick to add and remove things from the real HMI, if I need a temporary view of something, that is what I will do.

4 - More generally, is there a free source of good HMI building blocks, images, etc freely available? The stock ones are fine but lack sometimes.

We should start one. I have built up some things over the years, but most of what we do is relatively simple. I usually start a new job with the most similar previous job and then modify as necessary or sometimes open two instances of Crimson and drag and drop things between them. You can't drag and drop between 3.0 and 3.1, but you can convert 3.0 databases to 3.1.

Attached zipped widgets for water tower I use a lot and a 5 button control that I have used a couple of times...

 

[uminded]

Attached zipped widgets for water tower I use a lot and a 5 button control that I have used a couple of times...

Thanks for the example, it's good to see how others solve the same tasks. I have 3.0 widget for indicator push buttons that I like but it was becoming complex, good to know your water tower is the same way I build my layers.

I didn't even think of paramatizing the button text but I could easily extrapolate everything out and then "lock" the widget.

I use the Web Server a lot. With 3.0 I used the emulator quite a bit even with its quirks. Now that I am using 3.1, I just put what I need on a screen and use the web server to access it. I can count on one hand the number of times I have used the watch window. It is so easy and quick to add and remove things from the real HMI, if I need a temporary view of something, that is what I will do.

The simulator on 3.0 is priceless to me. I rarely have the hardware before I start developing and upgraded to 3.1 for a CR1000-0700 and had to do the "testing" while at the installed panel... Was stressful.

What do you do if you don't have the size of HMI that you need?

I think RL either needs to get their rear in gear on the 3.1 emulator or have a membership to use a cloud version or something. They could have a member page and the serial number of real hardware entitles you to say 100hours of online-time of their HMI farm. I would even pay $250 for an emulator that runs on Linux and I need to restart the application every 60min like Codesys does.