CMORE HMI Panels

I used one once recently and was very impressed, especially for the price. I did not see any way to use UDTs or global object type things which is a real downer for development. May not be an issue for everyone, though.

MorphuisOGrady said:

Hi there,

Anyone have any experience in C More HMI panels? Are they used in US at all? I have a US customer that wants us to consider using them in place of AB Panelviews.

I haven't toyed with the software but it looks pretty easy to navigate. My concern is the low cost. Are they reliable?

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I have used a few in the past for basic applications. Depending on what level of control you are after I would not have any concern with using one. The price point makes them very attractive if you are trying to avoid making something a capital project. Also for visualization I have ran across another software call "AdvanceHMI." Open source free software that is good for displaying messaging or controls. It is based in a Visual Studio platform. Looks very similar to CCW.....

rupej said:

I did not see any way to use UDTs or global object type things which is a real downer for development. May not be an issue for everyone, though.

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I miss the Global option too.
But C-more has the background Screen optiion

Is there a way to handle visibility for a group of objects all at once? I will end up with 10 groups, each having 11 objects inside. It's getting very cumbersome to manually edit the visibility option for each object in each group individually.

Select multiple objects on the screen and then go to Property List. Enable edit and you will see the visibility option. You can then set your tag.

a group does not have that option it seems

Don't group them. Just select multiple objects.

Cool trick. I like having them grouped since they'll be on top of each other, but I can edit the visibility all at once before grouping them. I can make that work easily in this case.



It would be nice if the group itself also had visibility settings. I remember doing some animation with a PV+ once where I had a couple of object groups where I used the visibility function in each individual object as well as the group to do different things. That functionality would be nice here, but I can see ways around it already.


Thanks for the help!


ETA:
BTW, I'm migrating from a PV+6 700 to a C-More EA9-T7CL. It's been years (over a decade) since I worked with a C-More but I'm glad I chose to try it again. I remember the software being pretty straightforward to work with before and it still is. View Studio for the PV+...less so. I'm still having to re-learn a bunch of stuff, but it's mostly not been an issue.

Steve Bailey said:

Don't group them. Just select multiple objects.

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You also need to tick the [x] Advanced checkbox for any objects that you want in your selection.
The Properties List dialog will only show the properties that are available for all selected objects:
if you have ONE object in your selection that does NOT support the Advanced checkbox
or does support it but it is NOT ticked, that property will not show in the dialog.
If another property is behind that unticked checkbox (ie: Visibility,) you will not have access to that property.

Eg. The Static Text object supports the Advanced checkbox property, the Pushbutton object does not.
Both support the Visibility property.
If you select both objects, and if the Static Text object's Advanced checkbox is unticked you will NOT see the Visibility OR the Advanced checkbox in the Property List dialog.
Select ONLY the Static Text object and tick the Advanced checkbox and then select both objects.
Now you have access to the Visibility property of both objects.

hth

The Cmores are missing some very basic features that are common in most HMI software, including the AB PV800. Be sure you investigate thoroughly, or you may be forced to make a lot of PLC program changes to account for the lack of features of the HMI. One major missing feature that comes to mind is interlocked and multistate pushbuttons.



I haven't found a way to copy a screen or objects from an one application and put it into another, which makes it a pain when maintaining multiple similar but slightly different machines. Maybe I'm missing something there, so if i am, I'd love to know how to do that. I had to rebuild an entire screen from scratch last week because I couldn't figure out how to copy that screen over from another line that already had it programmed.



My other complaint, which is more of just an opinion, is the software is not laid out very well and requires too much clicking and scrolling all over the screen. In my opinion, of the many HMI softwares I have used, Crimson is by far the best and Cmore is the worst.

Helliana said:

Crimson is by far the best and Cmore is the worst.

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How do the screen prices compare????

jimtech67 said:

How do the screen prices compare????

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Equivalent Redlion is about $70 cheaper.

One good thing with Cmore is you can download the manuals for free and look and see if it has the features you need before deciding.


Mike

Helliana said:

I haven't found a way to copy a screen or objects from an one application and put it into another, which makes it a pain when maintaining multiple similar but slightly different machines. Maybe I'm missing something there, so if i am, I'd love to know how to do that. I had to rebuild an entire screen from scratch last week because I couldn't figure out how to copy that screen over from another line that already had it programmed.



My other complaint, which is more of just an opinion, is the software is not laid out very well and requires too much clicking and scrolling all over the screen. In my opinion, of the many HMI softwares I have used, Crimson is by far the best and Cmore is the worst.

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Cmore uses libraries for screens and objects. Run the C-More program as an admin and go to screen library, create a folder and drag a screen into it. If you don't have admin privilege you may get an error. Then in the new project you can simply drag and drop these screens into your project. When putting the screen into a library you can have it retain the PLC tags if they'll be the same in the new one or you can convert them to internal tags.

I do agree that C-More as a whole involves too much clicking. I miss things like tag substitution, global objects and placeholders from the RA world(but I've yet to crash C-More whereas FT View I crash daily). The ability to use Bit of Word and use a tag as a array index would be handy and replace the workarounds to do this in the PLC instead.

One other big downfall IMO is their user access. I created an entire routine in the PLC with a handful of HMI screens to handle this. Normally any password protected screen has to have the password entered everytime you go to it. There is no "global" login. My workaround was passwords and user permission levels in the PLC and invisible bitmap buttons over the objects in the HMI that disappear based on user permission level. I also handle the email address and "oncall" days/times in this. Happy to share it if anyone is interested.

No complaints about the hardware, price or customer service though. All excellent.

Maple Systems are kinda nice on the low end as well.