Taking the Initiative

There has been some talk around the HMI industry about Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) and Total Effective Equipment Productivity (TEEP). HMI's are a way to take the initiave in making advancements in these areas. I could blither on about some ideas to accomplish this, but, the good folks at Pro-face have already released a white paper about doing just that. 

The paper describes several ways to make operators more efficient through proper HMI screen design and functionality. These ideas will work for just about any HMI with the capabilities to implement them. I recommend that you give the White paper a read. It is available at ...
http://www.profaceamerica.com/cms/site/61f8b68edd47621b/index.html

MODBUS use with Motor Drives

Using Interfaces with motor drives gives setup personnel an easy way to change drive parameters. This usually happens when machines are required to run several different jobs. Their configuration, tooling and drive parameters need changing. Many motor drives use MODBUS protocols for communications to a PC. The PC is used to configure the drive before installation. Once installed, configuration changes can be made from a laptop or something more dedicated like a handheld device provided by the drive manufacturer or an HMI with appropriate protocol capabilites.

You would think this would be an easy HMI project. But you might want to check some things out. Be sure you can get the proper documentation; such as a list of drive parameters and their equivalent MODBUS register assignments. Sometimes the MODBUS assignments are in Hexadecimal, other times they are in Decimal notation. Be sure you are using the correct addresses, converting hexadecimal to decimal as needed. Another thing to check is the starting address of the MODBUS registers. Some drives start with register 400000, others start with 400001. This one word offset can throw things off and strange values appear on the HMI. Also watch out for the register order of double words or floating point values. Again, if drive data seems out of place or strange behavior is happening check if the data is low order or high order sequenced.

I had a call from a developer designing a system using Kollmorgen Drives. This drive communicates MODBUS TCP/IP. Some values were not appearing as they should and the customer and I had a tough time figuring things out. Eventually, the problems were resolved. The drive registers started at word 400000 and the register word order was reversed (high order sequence). Once this was realized, project development proceeded normally.

Who's Driving? (Where's my USB driver?)

Recently, I received an email from a new Windows 8 user. He was frustrated because Windows 8 would not let him install the USB driver for downloading to his Operator interface.
The culprit? ... NO DIGITAL SIGNATURE!
Eeep! What to do? 
Well, he eventually found a work around for Windows 8 on the web for another product. I have modified it and posted it below. Caution! Some Windows savvy is needed.

Missing digital signature for driver on Windows 8

1. Windows Key + R
2. Enter shutdown.exe /r /o /f /t 00
3. Click the "OK" button
4. System will restart to a "Choose an option" screen
5. Select "Troubleshoot" from "Choose an option" screen
6. Select "Advanced options" from "Troubleshoot" screen
7. Select "Windows Startup Settings" from "Advanced options" screen
8. Click "Restart" button
9. System will restart to "Advanced Boot Options" screen
10. Select "Disable Driver Signature Enforcement"
11. Once the system starts, install the Weintek USB drivers as you would on Windows 7

Steps to install driver after Driver Signature Enforcement has been disabled:
1. Right click the Unknown Device in Device Manager
2. Select Update Driver Software
3. Select Browse my computer for software
4. Click Browse button
5. Select the \usbdriver folder under the location of your EasyBuilder software installation. (Do not select the folders inside the Drivers folder)
6. Click OK
7. Click Next

Note:
If you have a new system that came with Win 8 pre-installed, Secure Boot has probably been enabled in the BIOS.
The steps above, probably will not work unless Secure Boot has been disabled in the BIOS before performing these steps.

I personally have not tried this as I do not have a Windows 8 machine yet.
Any feedback about compatibility between Windows8 and EasyBuilder8000 or EasyBuilderPro is welcome.

Feeling Blue?

No need to feel blue about the upcoming change to HMI products. The Red LED that indicates communications transmissions is being replaced by a snazzy new Blue LED.

We look forward to this change. It is coming soon, this year!

So, Happy New Year!

Turning a deaf ear towards electrical noise

Electrical Noise is not a problem that will disappear anytime soon. It comes from a variety of sources and is characterized by unwanted Electromagnetic-interference (EMI), power line glitches, static discharges and other effects. A majority of complaints about noise sources are through the power lines.
The best way to prevent destructive power glitches from getting to sensitive digital components is through Galvanic Isolation. Some HMI platforms do not have this isolation and depend on the device providing power to the HMI to filter out these disturbances. However, when cost is an issue, applications sometimes have the cheapest power supply available. These inexpensive power supplies don't always provide the best filtering. The result is erratic HMI performance or early HMI failure.

So, next time you are looking for an embedded HMI product. Be sure to check that it has Galvanic Isolation. (Google Galvanic Isolation to find out more about Galvanic Isolation techniques.)

Thinking about HMI projects

You need an operator Interface for your machine. You have some ideas about what you want it to do. You begin to search the market for an appropriate HMI that fits in your panel. Then the frustration begins. Not all HMI's are created equal. Some will do what you need and others won't. Finally you find one that looks like a good prospect. Only to find out as you go along, that more features are needed than the HMI can handle. Specifications get changed by end customers. Suddenly the deadline to finish the project looms large!  Despite all of the planning to try and diffuse this situation, it arises anyway.

All too often the HMI programmer is stuck between Supervisor and Customer demands. Much of this can be avoided with some pre-planning. Like all engineering, design before doing/making is the best way (if you have time!).

First determine if a Panel PC with HMI software might be a better choice than an embedded HMI platform. I have experienced disillusioned customers that thought embedded HMI panels could do everything a panel PC could do. (Like, run 3rd party applications, store GB of information, show a spreadsheet with pie chart or show 16 different windows at the same time. Really?) I know embedded HMI's are getting better all the time, but they are not quite there yet.

Use a Panel PC if you are going to use the interface as a data gathering tool. A 1.5TB hard drive will hold more process data than you can view in a lifetime. Unlimited Trending and Event Tracking are good reasons to use a Panel PC. There are a lot of graphic libraries for PC's so every screen can look pretty. PC's can also be setup as a website for other PC's to view their data.

Use an embedded HMI when operator control is a high priority. Most HMI's can handle several communication streams to provide control for several PLC's. HMI's can handle some data logging and Event/Alarm logging, but, even with external memory sticks the data can be limited. Embedded HMI's have no fans or hard drives to fail and are more rugged for industrial situations.

The best solution is to call the provider of Panel PC's or embedded HMI's and talk to them about the application. They can usually guide you as to which platform is best for your application.

P1000 Printer tested and works with MMI8000

I know it has been a long time since my last post. I am trying to get back into blogging. Some Interesting events are happening and i want to be ready to blog about them.

I was wondering if KEP's P1000 slip printer would work with the MMI8000 Series products. So I got myself one of these printers and tried some tests. I wasn't too long before I was printing up fictitious receipts. I thought I should pass this information along. It is on my website as well as below.
Link:  MMI8000 to P1000 Printer Setup

First, setup the printer so it can receive printouts from the MMI8000/6000 Series products.

Set the baud rate in the printer to 9600 Parity None.

1. Hold FEED button down and cycle power to the P1000 Series printer.
2. Press SEL button until “Baud rate: 9600bps” is printed out.
3. Press FEED and then Press SEL button until “Parity: None” is printed out.
4. Cycle power to the P1000 Series printer.

The printer is now set up and ready for printing.

Next, configure the MMI8000/6000 Series project created with EasyBuilder8000 Software to print information.

1. Go to the Edit|System Parameters Menu and then to the Model Tab.
2. Select SPRT(SP-DIII, DIV, D5, D6, A, DN, T) as the printer model
3. Set COM: to COM 1; Baud rate: to 9600; Parity: to None; Data bits: to 8; Stop bits: to 1
4. Set Pixels of width to 144 (The P1000 Series printer's print head width) 
5.  Recommended Screen hard copy scale: is 100%

When creating a window for printing, the following is recommended.

• Create the window with a width of 144 pixels to match the P1000 Series printer's print head width.
• Use fonts no smaller than size 8 as the resolution of the printer is unable to clearly print text with a lower resolution. Size 12 fonts are printed as large.
• Printouts will be in black and white (ribbon color is substituted for black)

Cable configuration: Printer 25 pin Male to HMI 9 pin Female

P1000 Printer	MMI8000/6000 RS232 COM1
2 TxD (Transmit)	3 RxD (Receive)
3 RxD (Receive)	2 TxD (Transmit)
4 RTS (Busy Line)
7 GND (Ground)	5 GND (Ground)
20 DTR