bagged2drag

TIA Portal HMI Button Not working

11 posts in this topic

I am hoping someone can help me.  

I have a siemens system in our facility that was built by a 3rd party.  It arrived in less than stellar fashion, and doesn't work as it should.   After 10 months of being here and not getting any resolve, I am going after it myself to tackle what should be relatively mundane issues to fix.  That said, I have an AB background, and have worked with Automation direct, eaton, and fanuc controllers.  I am new to siemens.   I have made my way around the ladder pretty well, but I am having some issues with the HMI.  Specifically, the vendor programmed in manual controls for our system, but they do not all work.  I checked the HMI tags; they appear to match the plc tags as I expect, but when I press the HMI buttons on the screen, in online mode, I cannot see the tags become energized in the ladder.   The corresponding manual controls subsequently do not work.  The manual controls that do work, I can see the bits energize when I press the HMI buttons.  

Is there anything specifically I should be looking at that I am overlooking possibly?  Typically, the HMI is an easy part of a project, but I am a bit dumbfounded by my inability to figure out something so seemingly simple.  

 

Thanks,

KK

ST30 Reject Open.JPG

ST30 Reject Open Rung.JPG

ST30 Reject Open 2.JPG

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Do you see the status of all the other tags when monitoring the system ?

Was the system switched to "MAN_MODE" when you tried to change status of the tag ?

If you look at "Animation" for the button, is "Control enable" activated to disable control of the button if a certain tag is 0 or 1 (perhaps "MAN_MODE") ?

 

Edited by Bryll

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Have you added the same tag in the HMI as well as the PLC? 

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Is the HMI tag mapped to the correct PLC tag?

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On 11/28/2016 at 0:32 AM, bagged2drag said:

I am hoping someone can help me.  

I have a siemens system in our facility that was built by a 3rd party.  It arrived in less than stellar fashion, and doesn't work as it should.   After 10 months of being here and not getting any resolve, I am going after it myself to tackle what should be relatively mundane issues to fix.  That said, I have an AB background, and have worked with Automation direct, eaton, and fanuc controllers.  I am new to siemens.   I have made my way around the ladder pretty well, but I am having some issues with the HMI.  Specifically, the vendor programmed in manual controls for our system, but they do not all work.  I checked the HMI tags; they appear to match the plc tags as I expect, but when I press the HMI buttons on the screen, in online mode, I cannot see the tags become energized in the ladder.   The corresponding manual controls subsequently do not work.  The manual controls that do work, I can see the bits energize when I press the HMI buttons.  

Is there anything specifically I should be looking at that I am overlooking possibly?  Typically, the HMI is an easy part of a project, but I am a bit dumbfounded by my inability to figure out something so seemingly simple.  

 

Thanks,

KK

ST30 Reject Open.JPG

ST30 Reject Open Rung.JPG

ST30 Reject Open 2.JPG

1) I checked the HMI tags; they appear to match the plc tags as I expect, but when I press the HMI buttons on the screen, in online mode, I cannot see the tags become energized in the ladder.  

How you confirm the HMI tags is match to the PLC Tags. Is it by DB address? You need to make sure the HMI is link to the correct PLC addrrss.

 

2) The corresponding manual controls subsequently do not work.  The manual controls that do work, I can see the bits energize when I press the HMI buttons.  

What means corresponding manual control subsequently do not work and the manual control that do work? This mean manual control work or not working?

 

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In the HMI program, select the tag name, then click the "..." button to its right. That will open a pop-up of the tag database showing the tag name and PLC address. Make sure the PLC address in the HMI database matches the PLC address you're looking at in the PLC (from the screenshot, it looks like it's M30.2 in the PLC).

We had a weird issue where it did all match but the tag in the PLC wasn't updating, similar to what you're seeing. We re-downloaded the project to the HMI and it started working. It's possible the project we were looking at was not the exact project that was in the HMI. If you're having that much trouble out of the machine in general, it wouldn't surprise me to discover that the project file you have isn't what's in the machine. Unfortunately, there is no way I'm aware of to compare HMI projects. You can do a PLC block compare online to offline but not the HMI.

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Thanks Joe.  I haven't revisited this but I appreciate the advice.   I found the tag name database connecting the hmi tags to the plc tags in our other equipment.  That is generally the route I go now, and I just search for the tag in the dropdown.   

I'm still much more familiar with Rockwell projects, but this Siemens is growing on me a bit.  Still seems cumbersome vs rockwell when writing ladder, but the HMI aspect seems a bit nicer than factorytalk view...

 

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I agree 100% with your review of AB/Siemens HMI and PLC programming. We have a bunch of (now obsolete) MP277 HMIs using WinCC Flexible 2008. Getting them to talk to multiple PLCs, including AB and Siemens, over Ethernet is super easy. The alarming and recipe management functions are also excellent. I just wish the screens themselves held up better. In 5 years, we've gone through more 10" MP277 panels than all other HMIs combined over 10 years.

The PLC programming is much more cumbersome and archive management is a major pain in the neck and unreliable (a rant for another day, I think). If we could use WinCC Flexible HMIs and AB PLCs, my life would be much easier.

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Yes, I actually noticed the bit about the screens being unreliable, or more precisely, not very durable.   I have 4 machines; 1 is 2 years old, the others are 1 year old, and areas of the screens are already "wearing out."  I have had to increase button sizes etc.   I am actually thinking of resorting to electro-mechanical buttons for some functions in fact, as it is so problematic.  

One other oddity with the Siemens HMI is use of the CF/SD card slot.  I'd like to export data regularly, but it seams as though doing so is very cumbersome and not actually "built in" like most HMI's (need to use vb?).

You have any advice on this?  Maybe some available source code/etc?  Where does that code need to reside, etc?  I am assuming on the host os of the HMI?

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Recipes can be very easily saved to a USB flash drive or the SD card but I don't know about data logging. I've never done that with the Siemens HMIs, only Red Lion.

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On 28. 11. 2016. at 5:32 PM, bagged2drag said:

I am hoping someone can help me.  

I have a siemens system in our facility that was built by a 3rd party.  It arrived in less than stellar fashion, and doesn't work as it should.   After 10 months of being here and not getting any resolve, I am going after it myself to tackle what should be relatively mundane issues to fix.  That said, I have an AB background, and have worked with Automation direct, eaton, and fanuc controllers.  I am new to siemens.   I have made my way around the ladder pretty well, but I am having some issues with the HMI.  Specifically, the vendor programmed in manual controls for our system, but they do not all work.  I checked the HMI tags; they appear to match the plc tags as I expect, but when I press the HMI buttons on the screen, in online mode, I cannot see the tags become energized in the ladder.   The corresponding manual controls subsequently do not work.  The manual controls that do work, I can see the bits energize when I press the HMI buttons.  

Is there anything specifically I should be looking at that I am overlooking possibly?  Typically, the HMI is an easy part of a project, but I am a bit dumbfounded by my inability to figure out something so seemingly simple.  

 

Thanks,

KK

 

Hi, not sure if you are still seeking solution but regarding pictures you uploaded you set the bit when you press the button and reset it while you release button. So you get the short activation pulse while you keep the key pressed. Looking at your ladder code I don't feel like you want this kind of behaviour or?

If you want to bit remain energized until you second press that same button best is to use the event InvertBit on Press button event instead of events Setbit-Resetbit.

Hope I understood the problem and my solution helps you! 

 

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