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RobertL

Factory Talk ME, 15 Displays

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Hi Folks, I'm in the process of buying a Factory Talk Machine Edition 15 Displays software for my current employer, and I was told by the vendor that it can be upgraded to 30 Displays from Rockwell site. Does anybody have done this before? The 15 Displays edition is about $500.00 cheaper than 30 Displays edition. Any help would be highly appreciated.

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Yes, you can do that just fine. Keep in mind that you will need go through the process of getting the upgraded activation => your time and waiting for order process: order/register the new 30 activation (@ full price?)remove the old 15 activationinstall the new activation fileget purchase credit for returning the old 15 activationThe 15 or 30 display license is for the runtime software. It has nothing to do with the development software. So, you can go ahead and build your project and see how many displays you end up with before committing to a license. What matters is when you compile your project (build the MER file) it will need to have 15 displays or less. Here are some tips you can use to reduce your display count: delete the default displays (alarms, info message, diagnostic messages). If you need alarm and diagnostic displays, add them to a regular display. That saves you 3 displays.use parameterized displays. If you have a few displays that are identical or similar in content, you will want to use parameters (ex. Mixer 1, Mixer 2, etc.). Do you have some displays that would be similar in content? post some details or pictures. That could save you several displays, costing only 1.Use visibility animation. At the extreme, create a display and group all the objects together (group 1). Then create a second display and group all the objects together (group 2). Use visibility animation to switch between the two displays. That saves you 1 display for every additional group, costing only 1 display. Caution: that will slow down the display load time and all tags on the screen will be on scan even if they are invisible objects. That will also make the displays complicated, and more difficult (time consuming) to edit/troubleshoot in the future.My recommendation is to use those tips if you are close to the 15 display limit (say 20 displays), you find it very unlikely that it would ever be exceed in the future and saving $500 is important. Otherwise just buy the 30 display limit and rest/design much happier. Consider your time now to design within the 15 displays, and the time penalty you/someone will pay to upgrade the license and maintain those more complicated displays.

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