Flex727

Are there equivalents in UniLogic to the following VisiLogic System Operands: SB 36 - INFO Mode SB300 - Reset PLC SI 14 - Current PLC Temperature SI 50 - INFO Delay Time

Still a bit new to UniLogic and I'm having some difficulty with a few simple items when building HMI screens. In VisiLogic on the V570, buttons have a very nice 3D effect and can look "pressed" or "unpressed". When using UniLogic on a UniStream 7, buttons look flat always. Am I overlooking something? I recognize there are 4 different button styles, but none of them appear very 3D and there doesn't seem to be an option to make any button appear "pressed". Also, in VisiLogic, any type of text element, such as Binary Text Switch can be made to look like a button. All Binary Text Switch in UniLogic appear totally flat, as best as I can tell. I am using the latest version of UniLogic (1.12.20), upgraded the UniStream 7 to the latest firmware, and my PC is 64-bit Windows 7.

I'm working on a UniStream project and I've got a simple question. In VisiLogic, an image could have a transparent background by checking the appropriate box in the image properties. When that box was checked every pixel in the image that was the same as the pixel in the upper left corner would assume the color of the background, thus rendering the parts of the image "transparent". I can't find a similar option in UniLogic. In the Help file, there is mention of something identified as "Background Color \ Image" which looks like it might apply, but that property is not present in my version of UniLogic (1.12.20) when I select the image. What am I missing?

I am a Unitronics Certified System Integrator with over 8 years of experience with Unitronics controllers. I have expertise in all three major Unitronics PLC software platforms - UniLogic, VisiLogic, and U90. I am available for small and medium projects by contract or can consult by the hour to assist on your project or train your personnel. I am based near Dallas, Texas, but can often help remotely by phone, email, or Skype to reduce or eliminate travel costs. I'd love to help you meet your project goals. Message me directly through this forum for contact information, or see below: blanier at arc-controls . com ( 972 ) 979 - 7781 <remove spaces>

I think it might be useful to pin a post at the top of this forum with general situations or attributes to consider when selecting Vision vs UniStream controllers. When might it be better to use Vision over UniStream? What situations or requirements call for using UniStream? I can think of a few: -Networking is superior with the UniLogic software, but if you wish to communicate by Ethernet with more than 4 other controllers or external systems, UniStream is FAR better. -UniStream provides compatibility with VNC apps, which can be important to some customers. -UniStream uses dynamic memory allocation and addressing. This can be important when developing very large projects. -UDFBs in UniLogic can save a lot of programming time when there are repetitive situations. -Vision provides for more choices in HMI screen size. I think a list like this, with recommendations by the Unitronics staff, would be extremely useful to developers and System Integrators.

Yep, works now.

Still says "You do not have permission to view this forum."

Okay, I got one for you... There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors.

I get "You do not have permission to view this forum" when I click on the link.

Thank you, Eyal. That's what I needed to know.

I have a V1210 in the field that I would like to replace with one of the large screen UniStreams to add certain capability that the UniStream offers. It currently has 4 I/O modules connected, which I DO NOT want to replace. They are: EX-D16A3-RO8 + 3 IO-D16A3-RO16 modules. Is that possible? I realize I will have to rewrite the software for the UniStream PLC, but will it connect to the Vision I/O modules?

This is engineering to make engineers proud. Your plan looks great! Keith, I hope you will report back your results. Also, can you provide some specifics on the hardware for your external watchdog timer?

This application is available in the Unitronics' app store. It sounds like it would be extremely useful, but I'd like to know if anyone on this forum has used the product and what the experience has been. Are there issues when the Visilogic software is updated? Is the simulation 100% faithful to an actual PLC? Can I simulate multiple PLCs that are in communication? Are there any significant features lacking? Thanks.

Thanks, Cara. I guess the bottom line is, should the PLC try to automatically re-connect with the SI 103-110 operands set to zero? It appears to me that it did in 9.4.0 and does not with 9.7.24. When I set the operands as Joe suggested, all works well. Also, should the SI 103-110 operands be retained after power cycle if the Power-Up is not set? It appears they are not retained in 9.7.24. Of course, this could be some sort of firmware issue, not Visilogic issue. Regardless, this issue is minor and setting the operands SI 103-110 takes care of the problem for me.

Thanks, Joe. That worked like a champ! I notice that the values are zero by default and are not retained after a power cycle. That seems odd to me. I gave them Power Up values of 10 (for 103-106) and 20 (for 107-110). That seems to work fine. I have never touched those System Integers before so it seems something has changed. I just pulled up an old project that used Visilogic 9.4, loaded up two PLCs, got them connected, and pulled the ethernet cable. When I put the cable back in the PLCs reconnected immediately. I checked the values of SI103-110 and they are all zero. Something has definitely changed between Visilogic 9.4.0 and 9.7.24.

Did something about the "re-connect" functionality change with Visilogic 9.7? I've been using several iterations of Visilogic over the years and have always been impressed with how the PLCs will immediately reconnect when communications are disrupted (e.g. ethernet cable is pulled and re-inserted, or one of the slave PLCs is powered off then on again). Now that I've upgraded to 9.7.24, the Master PLC no longer seems to attempt to reconnect after a disruption. I do have SB168 SET at power up. System details: Using MODBUS IP over ethernet. 3 V570 PLCs, 1 Master and 2 Slaves All PLCs are running the latest firmware All the networking attributes (timeouts, retries, etc) are set to the default Everything connects immediately upon power up, but if the connection is lost for any reason, no attempt is made to re-connect. I did not see this behavior ever with previous projects running under Visilogic 9.4 using the exact same code for the networking aspect. My code for the Ethernet and socket initialize & connect is the same as shown in the example project that comes with Visilogic. Besides SB168, is there anything specific I should check for?

Our most common request is for the PLC to be able to notify specific people when an alarm occurs, either by page, text message, or email. While we can certainly do that, there are certain recurring costs and requirements for that the customer rarely wants to pay (plus it's usually vetoed by the IT group). We do utilize Remote Operator from time-to-time to provide remote access, say at the engineer's desk, so that he can take a quick look at what's going on without having to make the trip to the process tool. When the PLC is located in a particularly remote or difficult to access location, we will very often provide (sell) a remote monitor box with it's own PLC that can be located anywhere. Customers seem to like this. Another common request is to be able to provide data to the customer's SCADA or monitoring system. I like to use MODBUS IP for PLC-to-PLC communications and generally collect all the requested data at one PLC in a contiguous memory array then set that PLC up as a MODBUS slave using port 502. That always works well and has made many customers happy, particularly the ones who insist we use PLCs that match their system (often Siemens or A-B ). Our platform is currently Unitronics (Vision) and we won't quote anything else. Often the system we are upgrading will have a touchscreen HMI (often Maple Systems or Beijer), but they are usually not full color. I try to use the color capability to add some wow factor and make the user interface much more intuitive. The one difficulty I tend to have is that the screen I'm replacing usually has 640x480 resolution and the V570 we typically use is only 320x240 (Cara has heard me complain about this before). On a big system we will occasionally use a V1210, but unless it's really necessary, we like to stay with the V570. I have developed a nice user interface for the V570 over the years that we tend to stick with on most products.

That's a large percentage of what we do. We will take a customer's system and upgrade it to add automation and intelligence to improve uptime & capability, reduce labor costs, and improve safety. The worst problem is getting accurate information about the components in the system, especially sensors. Further, while we build and test the retrofit components in the shop, when we take it to the field many unanticipated situations occur. The systems people in our company realized early on that it was important to bring the programmer along (me) on the install because there are often minor and even major changes that must be performed on the code to make it work properly on the customer's system. While that reduces some of the stress in getting the code right prior to the install, while we're at the customer site we have limited time and I must work quickly under pressure to get everything exactly right before we leave. It also provides the customer an opportunity to suggest minor changes to the software and user interface to provide them some customization. It's a challenging environment that I love. One customer was looking at two alternatives to upgrading their chemical delivery system in their semiconductor wafer fab. Our competition required them to remove the system from their wafer fab and ship it overseas to be upgraded with a 6-8 week turnaround. We told them we would come into their plant, upgrade their system in place, and complete the work in 3-5 days. They didn't believe we could do that and were seriously considering both options until the group manager walked into a meeting looked at the two options and asked them why they were still considering our competition. We got the job, completed the task on time, and was awarded work on 8 additional systems. Before we started we were asked, "If you get finished and it doesn't work, can you put it back the way it was?" "Uh, no, but we won't leave until it's working perfectly". We've never yet failed to overcome the problems we've encountered. I'm not sure there is anyone else in the country that can do what we do routinely.

Thanks, Cara. I did it a bit differently this time. I truly have a mix of MIs & MBs and a mix of reads and writes and don't see the offset this time. Before, I think I was just reading a single block of MIs. Also, I'm now using Visilogic 9.7.24, whereas before I was using 9.4.0. I'll have to revisit my previous project to look for other differences. I'll say this, that R/W Mixed Data FB is mighty handy for what I do.

I'm going to bump this since I'm working on another project where I'd like to use the Read/Write Mixed Data FB. I'm just a bit concerned about that offset on the MI read, but not on the write. Is there just an inconsistency in the underlying code for this FB or am I doing something wrong, or what?

During program development I will usually end up downloading a project to a single PLC many dozens (sometimes hundreds?) of times. Occasionally something eventually corrupts the image file in the PLC which never gets corrected in subsequent downloads of the same project, even if the images change. In those instances, downloading a blank project file then re-downloading the original project file completely fixes the problem.

A direct coil isn't necessarily the best thing to use in this type of troubleshooting. It can turn on and then off again too fast for you to see, or within one PLC cycle. Try placing an Increment of an MI and watching it for changes.

Thank you.

I'm working a project that would ideally need a "drop-down" selection on the HMI screen for the user. Does such an element exist? If not, what would be the closest approximation? This is for a V570 using Visilogic 9.7.24.

It's okay (if the logic is correct) to use Set and Reset coils in multiple places in your project, but NEVER use multiple direct coils with the same address. In your case, you're trying to trigger something off multiple conditions. Use a separate direct coil (or Set coil, if appropriate) for each condition, then at the end of your subroutine, place all those separate MBs as contacts in parallel to trigger MB10. You can easily check for multiple coils of the same address by right-clicking on the Operand (when NOT Online) and selecting "Find...". All the instances of the operand will be listed at the bottom of the screen and you can double-click on any of them to take you to the location.