HMI

Community forum for discussion and support of the PINK product and development kit
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wiresalot
Posts: 7
Joined: Mon Dec 27, 2010 4:01 pm

HMI

Post by wiresalot »

Hello,

Is there any open source HMI/SCADA program I can use with my PINK?

Any help Is appreciated, or lead me in the right direction!

Thanks
wiresalot
rnixon
Posts: 833
Joined: Thu Apr 24, 2008 3:59 pm

Re: HMI

Post by rnixon »

Which commands do you need to support?
Is the pink the originator, or the device?
wiresalot
Posts: 7
Joined: Mon Dec 27, 2010 4:01 pm

Re: HMI

Post by wiresalot »

The Pink would be the originator.

I just whant something that I could go to a webpage and and veiw my variables, and send variable, only instead of numbers, there would be graphics, IE switches, indicator lights, and guages.

Maybe HMI isnt what I am looking for.

Thanks for your time.

wiresalot
User avatar
tony
Posts: 49
Joined: Thu Apr 24, 2008 6:05 pm

Re: HMI

Post by tony »

I've never used the PINK before but from what I understand it supports some form of UDP communication. If you download the Visual Studio Express software from Microsoft I don't think you will find a more powerful HMI application on the market than you can code yourself. You don't need any special hardware drivers for a PLC or anything anyways. Once you download you might want to take a look at http://sourceforge.net/projects/advancedhmi/ This is a free app that has some HMI building blocks for the GUI. A second open source solution is PVBrowser http://pvbrowser.de/pvbrowser/index.php which uses QT as the backend. It's not to shabby but can be difficult to install on Windows sometimes. This is a C++ only solution.

I was originally going to suggest Adobe Flex or Microsoft Silverlight but I noticed that the PINK only has 256k of flash available which is not enough to host either one of these. I started programming in Silverlight recently because I got sick and tired of Flash Player locking up (I think Apple is on to something!). I should probably post an example on the Wiki sometime because it is nothing short of amazing in my opinion. Especially if you are embedding the GUI in your device. I've had nothing but compliments from my customers.
v8dave
Posts: 333
Joined: Thu Dec 31, 2009 8:31 pm

Re: HMI

Post by v8dave »

Hi there,

One of the problems I have run across with SCADA is reliability. At my old place of work we had a stubborn programmer who insisted he could design anything in a short time. We were looking to offer the client a SCADA interface to some remote sensors which would send data via GPRS so he set about writing code to run on a Linux box. After about 6 months work we had something but it was very very basic and would crash quite often whilst the client was logged on. not what you want.

I suggested we purchase an off the shelf system from a company I was familiar with in the past, Trihedrals VTS SCADA software. Standalone and web based and virtually bullet proof. After all, a large number of very large commercial sites where using it. The cost was less than this programmers time and we would have a fully integrated package with far more features and almost a drag and drop method of creating the interface.

If your design requires web page access then rolling your own is going to take you some time. If this is for a home hobby use then open source is the way to go but if this is commercial consider the option of going for something off the shelf, you will save yourself so much grief in the long run.

As it happens, I am working on a SCADA interface just now with VTS. You can request a free 120 days trial. You get the full package but it is run time limited to 4 hours but this is more than enough to test with.

Cheers
Dave...
PS.. I have no connection with Trihedral other than being a happy customer.
wiresalot
Posts: 7
Joined: Mon Dec 27, 2010 4:01 pm

Re: HMI

Post by wiresalot »

Thanks for the replies, looks like I got some reaserch to do!
Great information you have shared.

Thanks again!

wiresalot
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