Factory talk text"output"

[mmd604 1]

I have a INT between two control systems.  The destination is a allen bradley plc.  I am running studio 5000.  The INT  indicates current step in sequence.  I have made a HMI screen in Factory talk studio.   I want to creat a text message on the hmi screen to indicate which step in the sequence.  This will require text for each step for indication for our operations.   How do I go about doing this in Factory talk ie 1=" down aspiration" 2 ="up aspiration" etc

[Joe E. 259]

Two options come to mind:
1) Multistate Indicator
2) Simple string display

The first would look at the integer you have and will display a message based on its value. It's fully self contained within the HMI.

For the second option, you would just have a string display on the HMI that would show the text from a string tag in the PLC. You would store the strings in the PLC and have the PLC copy the correct string to the display tag based on the value of the INT tag.

The advantage to the first is that you can use existing PLC code and add it to the HMI without messing with the PLC at all. The multistate indicator also lets you easily change background and text colors and text size on a state-by-state basis so each step could be easily color coded. The disadvantage is that any changes to the text, whether correcting a typo or adding a message would require modifying the HMI project, recompiling a runtime file, and transferring the runtime file to the HMI. I find this more cumbersome than editing the PLC file.

The advantage to the second is that you can quickly and easily update the string files from within the PLC program. You could even add a screen to the HMI to let you edit the string values at runtime without needing a laptop at all. The biggest disadvantage is that it's harder to control the text and background attributes (color, font size, etc.).