Messages

5101

Open Discussion / Re: Where is the Numeric Input?

« on: June 10, 2013, 05:58:09 AM »

It is embedded into the controls that have the PLCAddressEntry property. If you put a PLC address in that property, when the control is clicked during run time the keypad will pop up.

Since VS 2010 and 2012 are still free, AdvancedHMI has been changed to use .NET 4. This gives the ability to use the built in Chart control. So that is why 2008 is no longer supported.

5102

Tips & Tricks / Multiple Update Rates on Same Form

« on: June 09, 2013, 09:02:38 PM »

If you need the update rate of your controls to be faster, you can change the PollRateOverride property of the driver. By default it is 500ms, so you can change it to something like 100ms. However if you have a large number of controls on the form, you can quickly bottleneck the communications.

If you only need a few select controls to update faster, you can achieve this by doing the following:

1) Select the driver in the component tray
2) Right click and select copy (or Ctrl-C)
3) Paste a new copy in the component tray (Ctrl-V)
4) Select the new instance of the driver and change to the PollRateOverride to the faster rate (100)
5) Now select the control on your form that you would like to update faster
6) Change the ComComponent property of the control to the new instance of the driver

The result will be that only the selected control will update faster than the rest and avoid a communication bottleneck.

5103

Support Questions / Re: I cannot load the project on VS 2008 Pro

« on: June 06, 2013, 09:36:09 AM »

You would have to go back to an older version maybe as far back as 3.21

The software was upgraded to VS2010 or 2012 and .NET 4.0

It is recommended to download VS 2012 Express to use.

5104

Support Questions / Re: EthernetIPforCLXComm ReadAny() sometimes returns SequenceNumber

« on: June 03, 2013, 08:36:35 AM »

I was able to reproduce the problem by putting a lot of controls on a form and using ReadAny in code. I have posted version 3.40 that fixes the problem. These is a new method named ReadSynchronous that should be used when doing a synchronous read in code.

5105

Open Discussion / Re: Is it possible to launch another application from an HMI program?

« on: June 03, 2013, 06:15:05 AM »

Try this:

- Add a button to the MainForm from the ToolBox
- Double click the button which will take you back to the code view
- Enter this one line of code in your click event handler:

Code: [Select]

    Private Sub Button1_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
        System.Diagnostics.Process.Start("IExplore.exe")
    End Sub


5106

Tips & Tricks / AdvancedHMI on a Tablet

« on: May 23, 2013, 07:49:25 PM »

If you always wanted to roam around with your HMI in hand, it is now possible. AdvancedHMI has been successfully tested on the Microsoft Surface Pro. For anyone not familiar with the Surface, it is Microsoft's entry into the tablet market. There are 2 version, one runs WinRT and the other runs Windows 8 Pro. The pro version is essentially a full laptop in tablet form that runs Windows 8. The WinRT version is a scaled down version that is a bit more limited. AdvancedHMI will only run on the Surface Pro. I was even able to load and run Visual Studio on the Surface Pro.

You only need a wireless Ethernet connection to the same network on which your PLC resides and your AdvancedHMI application runs seamlessly on the tablet just as if it were on a full PC.

5107

Support Questions / Re: EthernetIPforCLXComm ReadAny() sometimes returns SequenceNumber

« on: May 12, 2013, 08:23:34 PM »

To All:

Version 3.27 is now available to see if it resolves these problems.

5108

Support Questions / Re: Issues with ControlLogix communications

« on: May 12, 2013, 08:22:39 PM »

Version 3.27 is now available and one of the problems addressed was reading large arrays. Try the new version and see if it fixes your problem, then let me know.

5109

Open Discussion / Release 3.27

« on: May 12, 2013, 08:20:28 PM »

The latest version 3.27 is not available for download. These are some of the key improvements:

AdvancedHMI Version 3.27 Release Notes

Based on .NET 4.0 framework
With .NET 4.0, A Chart is available under the data group of ToolBox
PilotLight can use different colors for on state and off state
Added KeypadMinValue and KeypadMaxValue to BasicLabel to limit value entry
Fixed problem with Modbus driver that would cause it to work for about 1 minute, then give index error
Added CloseConnection to EthernetIPforPLCSLCMicro and EthernetIPforCLX
Reworked some socket data handling inside the Ethernet/IP driver
Changed EthernetIP drivers to eliminate First Chance Exceptions that would cause slower reads
Fixed problem in EthernetIPforCLX driver with reading string arrays

Added SpeakMessage property to MessageDisplayByValue
Added ValueToWrite as OutputType option on BasicButton
TwinCAT driver is part of the package again

5110

Support Questions / Re: EthernetIPforCLXComm ReadAny() sometimes returns SequenceNumber

« on: May 10, 2013, 10:57:08 PM »

I have a theory of what causes this problem:

AsyncMode is a property, therefore any thread can change it's value at any time. Subscriptions are continuously polled and set the property to True prior to calling ReadAny. If a user call to ReadAny is started with AsyncMode set to False, then a subscription update fires and changes the value of AsyncMode to True after the user call starts, but before it uses the value, it will treat the user call as an Async call and return the TransactionID.

If this proves to be the problem, then I will have to remove AsyncMode as a property and make it a parameter that is passed to ReadAny. That will make a unique copy of the value that other threads cannot change at a critical moment.

Your last solution kind of re-enforces my theory of what is happening.

5111

Application Showcase / Re: Screen Shot of Program using only BasicLabels

« on: April 14, 2013, 06:26:46 AM »

To add a screen, right click AdvancedHMI in the Solution Explorer and select Add New Windows Form.

Most of my graphics are drawn in Adobe Illustrator and exported as PNG files. The animation can get a bit involved because it generally requires a bit of code to do.

5112

Support Questions / Re: How to rotate a graphic

« on: April 10, 2013, 05:27:16 PM »

There is an animating fan component, but it is only used in training class, so it is not available to the public. Your best route may be to try to use a GraphicalIndicator with 2 images. Make one straight and the other rotated by 45 degrees. Then set PLCAddressValue to a bit in the PLC that repeats a toggle when the fan is running. That will give you somewhat of an animation.

5113

Support Questions / Re: Dec to BCD

« on: April 10, 2013, 05:11:56 PM »

There is a way to display a value that is stored in BCD format, but it is a little involved. This requires modifying the control to intercept the value from the PLC and convert it.

1) In the Solution Explorer, under the Controls folder, right click DigitalPanelMeter.vb and select View Code.
2) Go to about line 322 and look for this code:
    Private Sub PolledDataReturnedValue(ByVal Values() As String)
        Try
            MyBase.Value = Values(0)
        Catch
            DisplayError("INVALID VALUE RETURNED!" & Values(0))
        End Try
    End Sub

3) Modify the code like this:

    Private Sub PolledDataReturnedValue(ByVal Values() As String)
        Try
            '* Extract the individual bytes from the word
            Dim b() As Byte = System.BitConverter.GetBytes(CInt(Values(0)))
            '* Break out the nibbles and convert to BCD
            Dim BCD As Integer = (b(0) And 15) + ((b(0) >> 4) * 10)
            BCD += ((b(1) And 15) * 100) + ((b(1) >> 4) * 1000)

            MyBase.Value = BCD
        Catch
            DisplayError("INVALID VALUE RETURNED!" & Values(0))
        End Try
    End Sub

5114

Support Questions / Re: Null Reference Exception

« on: April 10, 2013, 10:17:21 AM »

Check post 681 here:

http://www.plctalk.net/qanda/showthread.php?t=42656&highlight=driver+patch&page=46

5115

Support Questions / Re: Getting program to work

« on: April 06, 2013, 04:44:24 PM »

Go to Tools->Options menu

In that window go to Windows Forms Designer->General and make sure AutoToolboxPopulate is set to true.