Questions for my WinCC flexible project

[mfuglsang]

Hi. First i would say that my english is not that good, but i hope you can live with that :) I am making a project that contains some flexible programming. I have not made very many projects in flexible, so i have some questions that i hope you can help answer.. 1) If i put in some graphics - f.eks. an value or a motor. Then i would like it to be able to change colour when a bit is triggered. F.eks the value is turning green when it open's. Is it possible? 2) Isn't i possible to rotate or flip graphics?? 3) My project contains a S7-300 2pn/dp plc, 2 MP 277, and flexible running on a PC witch contanis recepies, loggings and so on.. I would like the PLC and the MP277 to syncronize the clock with the PC. But i havent found out how on the panels?? 4) The plc are logging data's (temperature, weight and so on) from every batch that are made on the equipment. And when a batch is finished a "report" is printet automaticly. On the report there is a graph over weight and temperature. And there are some informations about how many kilo's of water they have used and other informations from the batch. But the way that i have made it now, is just that i have made a screen in flexible on the PC, and insertet the graph and i/o fields to the different informations. And when a batch is finished i have made a small script that jumps to the screen with my "report" and make a print screen. And after that jumps to the screen that was showed before on the PC. But this is not optimal, cause there are some problems with diong it that way. F.eks. if something goes wrong in the change screen, then the "report" is not printet, and it is gone. I have seen that in flexible there are a possibility to make a report. I have tried to do so, but i can't insert graphs in reports?? I would also like to save a copy of each report on the PC, so that the operators can aleays go back and reprint the report - f.eks. if the printer is out of ink or other situations... Do you have a proposal of how to do that?? 5) My last question for now is about putting passwords on a botton. I have a botton that are changing screen to an "Technician" manu. I dont want anybody to be able to go to this screen, so i would like to put a password on.. I have been trying for very long time to find out how the user administration i flexible is working, but i can't make it work. I would like to create a user that is called f.eks. "technician" and a password fir this user. And when you press the button that changes screen to my technician menu it has to aks for a password. And when you leave the technician manu it has to log out automaticly.. Can you tell me how to make that work?? I know that this is a lot of questions. But i hope that you can help me sorting them out, so that i can make my project a good one. If you know about some step by step guides for flexible that can help solving some of my questions, i would like to hear from you.. All help will be welcomed with joy. Regards Morten Edited January 23, 2010 by mfuglsang

[JesperMP]

Hej Morten. 1.: Open the properties of the object, and then Animations and Appearance. Depending on a value of a tag, you can set background color, foreground color, and flashing. 2.: Not dynamically. I use bitmaps and Graphic IO fields to achieve something similar. 3.: Use the PLC as the clock. Let all HMIs syncronize its clock with the PLC via Area Pointers. Also have a screen on at least one of the HMIs where the PLC clock can be set. Use SFC0 SET_CLK to set the clock in the PLC. 4.: I have no experience with reports 5.: Under the Properties of the button, go the Sequrity, and select the Technician. On the protected screen, go to the Properties and then the Cleared event. Add the system function LogOff. Edited January 23, 2010 by JesperMP

[mfuglsang]

Thanks very much.. That solved a lot. And specialy the one about security. I have been trying a lot to make it work , but don't know why i haven't got it to work, cause it shows that it was actualy very simple But i am not sure that what you explayns in your answer for my question numer 1) is working. The graphics that i am talking about is the ones that are build in to flexible in "tools" and under "graphics". But when i go to properties -> animations -> appearance, and choose a tag and colours, then nothing happens with the colour of the value when the tag is changing from 0 til 1??? It sounds like you (JesperMP) are quite good at flexible - and then you are danish like me I was thinking if you know some danish forums about PLC and Siemens?? Or is it possible to get in contact to you directly over f.eks. MSN or something like that?? It would be nice get some help in danish - I think that it is hard to explayn the problems in english Regards Morten

[mfuglsang]

And can anybody help me with my question about creating reports with graphs??

[JesperMP]

Hej igen Morten. Re 1.: Not sure what goes wrong there. It ought to work. Then again, I dont have so much experience with the graphics from the symbol library. I think that screens made with these standard symbols looks naff. I use the basic objects, such as lines, squares, circles, texts etc. And with these the animations works for sure.

[Paul B]

You guys need to get a room. [American humor, please pardon.] I have some good code for setting PLC clock from HMI if you need it. Edited January 29, 2010 by Paul B

[mfuglsang]

Thanks forhelp. But i have made it my selv. I have created a DB with a variable of the type DATE_AND_TIME. In a FC i have used the SFC1 to move date_and_time to the VAR in my DB. In flexible i have used a area pointer to point at my new variable in the DB. I haven't testet it yet, but hopes that it will work.. :)

[acentegrator]

For logging longterm data in flex, the buit in options are not upto the mark. What we do is log the data in sql express edition. Then you can generate the report the way you want.