how to get started using VB6 to program HMI's 1

[morty1227]

Hello!

I was wondering if anyone had some tips on how to get started using VB6 to program HMI's. I have lots of PLC and HMI experience. I understand how you create display items for variable set points, but how does the data get to the PLC?

If you know of a good tutorial let me know!

 

[amptramp]

Search the forums. This topic has been discussed before. As an example, read this thread:

http://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=89373

Purchase canned solutions from a company such as:

http://www.softwaretoolbox.com/index.asp

 

[arj3090]

Any reason you want to use VB6? It has been replaced with VB.NET about 7 years ago and .NET is much more powerful.

Give this a try:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-E8NlUNiX4

http://sourceforge.net/projects/advancedhmi/

It's based on VB.NET, is all free, and will get you making HMIs in minutes.

 

[morty1227]

Thanks for your help guys! The youtube video was what I was looking for. I knew HMI's could be done using VB, I just could'nt tell how to det started!

 

[CtrlSystemsEng]

arj3090, your youtube video was excellent. I just came off of a project where I used an off the shelf HMI product with its own programming environment. It is super slow.

I'm thinking that we'll probably put a new SCADA front end on this system. So, a couple of questions for you:

1. I have a SLC5/05 with built in ethernet. I assume that this VB.NET application handles TCP/IP as well as serial(?)
2. How would you expect the performance of the workstations to be if I had 3 operator stations? Like I said, my current 3 station architecture is pretty slow. If I drop the stations back to a single workstation, then performance is reasonable. I've already optimized the network too so that there are no other conflicts.

Thanks

 

[arj3090]

Thanks CtrlSystemsEng! The AdvancedHMI project on sourceforge does include an Ethernet/IP driver for SLC and MicroLogix.

The performance is dependent on a lot of factors such as how many registers you will be reading and if they are consectutive in memory. The AdvancedHMI driver will be able to outperform other drivers, such as OPC, since the driver is compiled directly as part of the application.