FactoryTalk View ME Recipes

Hi,

I want to share where I am right now, to see if I am missing something.
I am using FactoryTalk View Studio Machine Edition, Version 11.00.

I have 5 identical machines. Each can run a cycle that requires 4 parameters.
I want to implement a recipe system where I have a number of recipes (let's say, a maximum of 64 recipes), each one identified by a name and each one holding the values for the 4 parameters.

I want to select, say, recipe #23 and download it to machine #3. Then select recipe #41 and download to machine #1, and so on...

In the past, I did this in RedLion Crimson 3.0 using indirect addressing. As there is no indirect addressing or arrays in FT View, I resorted to their "canned" solutions.

Well, Recipe Plus forces me to create these "Units", that is, a combination of a recipe and a machine. So, to do the above, I have to crate a "Unit" for the recipe23/machine3 combination, another unit for the recipe41/machine1 combination, and so forth...

The way I understand it, every time the user wants to create a new recipe, they have to create 5 units (the combination of the new recipe with each one of the 5 machines). This does not look right to me.

Then I found about the Recipe 2 ActiveX Control and my hopes went up...until I found that each recipe is contained in a separate .CSV file...why don't they have a single .CSV file with the ingredients in column A and each recipe set of values in column B, C, D, etc.???

If anybody can smack me in the head and say "you missed this, stupid" - I will be grateful.

Thank you.

I must add, modifying the PLC programs of the machines (to implement the indirect addressing and recipes there) is not an option.

Saulo35 said:

I must add, modifying the PLC programs of the machines (to implement the indirect addressing and recipes there) is not an option.

Click to expand...

Sorry I cannot be of much help but I will offer this. This would be the best option. Is how I, and many others, do it. I used to use the ActiveX Recipe control and while it works, I have never played with the Recipe2 ActiveX only the original, its less then ideal. To whomever is making the call to not allow you to modify the code at the controller level and then implement it in FTVS, I would try very hard to convince them otherwise.

My rough idea for you is to use internal tags for the recipe values, use a recipe download button to transfer the selected recipe to the internal tags, then use 5 macro buttons to set each of your 5 PLC group of tags to be equal to the internal tags.

If there was a way to create a button to combine the recipe download and macro button it would be ideal!

Thank you JZerb and sigmadelta, I will do a last effort to implement, via Macros, something to emulate this:

With a known x,

Tag1 = Tag2[x] (not possible in FTVS)

Emulate that with

If x = 1 then Tag1 = Tag2_01
If x = 2 then Tag1 = Tag2_02
...

Where Tag2_xx will hold the number Tag2[xx] would. My original RedLion recipe system held just 64 recipes so it should be doable.

If I hit a roadblock, I may go down to the mat to fight for our rights to modify the PLC code!

I was thinking even simpler than that...

1) Select the data record from the recipe that you want, and "download" to the internal tags.

2) Press one of 5 different buttons with 5 different macros to transfer to the appropriate PLC:


Macro1
PLC1Tag1 = InternalRecipeTag1
PLC1Tag2 = InternalRecipeTag2

Macro2
PLC2Tag1 = InternalRecipeTag1
PLC2Tag2 = InternalRecipeTag2

etc...

Thank you. I finally discarded both Recipe Plus and Recipe 2 ActiveX. I defined a capacity of 64 recipes. I created a page that shows 8 recipes at a time. There are buttons and macros to advance to the next page or go back to the previous page (created a page index tag for that). Created buttons to advance or go back just one row and to download to a machine's PLC tags.

Thanks to Tag Substitution, I easily created one Display per machine. I could not use parameters because the macro that downloads to the PLC does not accept parameters and neither does the button that calls the macro.

It required some work, creating long, repetitive macros, but Excel helped.

Out of interest - why can't you do it in the PLC?

janner_10, my client has a more or less "standard" PLC program and for some reason he switches HMIs from time to time. So, if possible, he would like to leave the PLC program alone.

I want to add the following regarding janner_10's comment: this HMI is wired to 5 identical PLCs, each controlling 1 machine. If the recipe management is moved to the PLCs, then, when the user creates a new recipe, it would have to be downloaded to all 5 PLCs. I am not sure how to do that with FT View ME and its limited programming feature.

In the end, I went back to Recipe 2 Enhanced ActiveX. The custom macros I created were incredibly slow. However, the testing was done with an insufficient number of PLCs, so communication failures may have been bogging down performance.

It was only after I switched back to ActiveX that I had the opportunity to test all 5 PLCs and execution speed was perfectly acceptable.