Indusoft is an HMI/SCADA platform that can be used with a variety of different PLCs. At DMC, we’ve used Indusoft with several PLC platforms, including Beckhoff, Omron, and Mitsubishi. Below, I’ve outlined a few tips and tricks that I&rsqu...
The GraphWorX64 software from Iconics is a powerful tool for building HMIs. As an upgrade from GraphWorX32, it offers several new features that allow the designer more flexibility and ease of use. The purpose of this blog post is to focus on the new ...
As legacy hardware begins to fail, support can be difficult for a variety of reasons - not the least of which is the deprecation of programming software and debugging tools. I recently helped a customer restore the program to an old Telemecanique (no...
The Siemens Open Library is a great resource that includes many commonly used Function Blocks and Faceplates. However, every project is different and customer requirements sometimes necessitate changes or the creation of new ...
In a previous blog I discussed programming motion control with a S7-1500 with Technology Objects in TIA Portal. This is a very popular method of doing the motion control on the PLC. We can also offload the motion control to the drive con...
Recently, I found the need to create customizable text for some alarms in a TIA Portal project. In this particular case, I needed to include the name of the operator that was monitoring the machine for traceability, as well as some specific mach...
Global Objects in Rockwell Automation / Allen-Bradley's FactoryTalk HMI development environment are useful to bring modularization and efficient repeatability of common elements in your project. This basic feature has been around for a long time,...
(With Apologies to Robert Lamm and The Chicago Transit Authority.) As I was walking down the street one day a man came up to me and asked me what the time was that was on my HMI time indicator, yeah, and I said: Uhhh...don't ask me. I seem ...
Manufacturers are rapidly increasing their capability to collect and analyze data. This data can be used to deploy KPI metrics, like OEE, providing real time and historical feedback on the productivity of manufacturing operations. This data can also ...
PLEASE NOTE: This blog was written using features available in TIA Portal V13 SP1 Update 1. Some of the functionality shown was removed in Update 3, specifically the ability to multiplex UDTs. Hopefully the rest of the information will be still be he...