inability to use dsc tags in clusters

[tbe@camhpet.on.ca]

I am looking at implementing an interface to
a Siemens s5 plc via it's as511 serial driver.
I purchase Labview dsc for this. However, when
I create a tag, and try to drag it into a
cluster, I lose the tag. The current version (6.1)
does not seem to support having tags within a cluster.
Yet, this is the only approach I can see given that
I need to somehow group roughly 500 process elements.
I don't see how I can have all these elements on
one main diagram. Am I missing something????
I was hoping to develop a Labview type multipane
user environment, but it does not appear to be
possible at present. If they don't fix this, I may
have to look elsewhere... ie wincc or intouch.

thoughts?
😆
tb

[Roli]

tb,

Maybe, I do not understand you correctly, but I could drag and drop a tag control in a cluster control and as well the same thing in the diagram as constants.
With unbundle you can get the Tag reference and you can wire that to any VI that require those tags as input.

If you have a lot of Tags configured in your .scf file you could use the functionality to group some of the tags together in Tag Groups. Some DSC VIs then handle as input those Tag Group Names. This makes writing a DSC application maybe more comfortable.

LabVIEW itself has the easy fuctionality of using SubVIs and those VIs could pop-up as additional window when you want to display some more information.

Unfortunately the screen size might be a limiting factor of 17 inches and if yo
u are lucky of 21". I assume other Software packages could not make the screen bigger 🙂

If I got your question wrong, you could give me maybe more details.

Hope this helps
Roland

[tbe@camhpet.on.ca]

If I drop a control on the front panel, and right click
it, one of the options that appears is HMI wizard, basically the ability to associate that control with a
tag. If I associate that control with a tag, everything
is fine until I drop that control into a cluster.
At that point the control ceases to be associated with
the tag.
Similarly, if I place a control within a cluster, and
then right click on it, no HMI wizard option appears.
Therefore, my assumption that a tag can not exist
within a cluster.
This behaviour is preferrable to that of 6.01, under
this version Labview HUNG totally under the same operation. But, the current behaviour is still
not sufficient.
😆
tb

[Roli]

tb,

I thought I did not understand you. But now it sounds clear to me.

Yes - you are right. The simple control in the cluster or in an array will not have a way to invoke the HMI Wizard to create simple HMI code because the control turns into a more complicated control type.
And if you created HMI code on a simple control and you move it into a cluster/array control it will change its terminal in the diagram to a cluster/array terminal and will remove the previously generated HMI code. In previous versions of LabVIEW (before 6.1) it could hang. This issue is fixed in LabVIEW 6.1.

LabVIEW's array and cluster can just connect to frontpanel datasocket connection as a whole control but this is not a lot of a use for LabVIEW DSC. If you want to
use controls in a cluster you could use the Read/Write tag VIs after you unbundled the control from the cluster vice versa.

Unfortunately, this is a limitation of LabVIEW. You could maybe address your suggestion on the LabVIEW forum.

Regards
Roland

[Jochen]

tb,

coming back to your initial question it looks like your problem isn't really related to bundling tag indicators. If I got it right you are asking if it's possible to create LabVIEW applications with more than one front panels to switch between. Is this correct?
Of course you can do that! Just create another vi, save it and call it as a subvi from the main front panel. If you want to make the panel pop up by pressing a button just put the button on the main vi's front panel and use the Panel Wizard to call the subvi's panel. You also can use the Panel Wizard to close the subvi's front panel.

Regards,

Jochen
Application Engineering Group Leader
NI-Germany