SIMATIC Wincc Flexible Quirks and General Questions

[NickBirke]

Ok so I am warming up to Siemens...

After figuring out a way to do timing... for the most part, I have been working on an HMI in Wincc Flexible- using the windows runtime device.

Given that I am fairly green at this line of products I have been beating on this program quite a bit... at one point Wincc crashed, and I lost a bunch of stuff... I assumed it would save before compiling... but no.

A couple quirks... not showstoppers but things I want to know how to get rid of... I have a couple messages when I compile. Note there is only one screen...

... "No system function defined for job."

I don't have any jobs defined. I think I dabbled with making one at one point but I don't see it anywhere. I thought I had deleted it... this is probably an easy one and I just need to look harder... the next one...

... "No tag configured for object 'IO Field_5' in 'Screen_1'.

At one point an object with this name existed... then it did not... either I deleted it or it was lost... this is when the compiler first started throwing the warning... I have since put a new IO field on the screen that was assigned that name by the tool... and it does have a tag configured, and it works... the compiler still throws this warning.

Lastly... I currently have no tag with the name MD250... I think I did at one point and it was either lost in the crash or I deleted it... I don't remember... I can look at my tag table and it is not there. If I add it, the compiler throws an error....

... "Duplicate tag name md250 in project"

So these are all kind of the same thing... the compiler thinks there is stuff there that is not there... I am surprised the error about the IO field didn't go away when I actually created an object with that name... anyway... where is it getting this stuff from... is there some way... some file I can dig into and hack... to clean this project up?

 

[eeprom]

I have done about quite a few projects with that software, and yes it is very buggy. It crashes a lot.

Problems I know about:
- Once in a while you have to go into DOS and do a system cache clearing.
- If you try to edit a screen older or newer than your software, you will have to do an OS update. This is not fun.

But aside from that, the Siemens program can do 10 times what the component level allen bradley screens can do.

I am going to assume you know what tags are.

Error 1 - I've never seen this one. It may be event-related. All screen objects are capable of events. If you have a tag selected for an event, but no event chosen, you might get this error. I'm not sure.

Error 2 - This means you have an I/O device named IO_Field5 on screen #1 and you haven't assigned a tag for this. An I/O field (probably a text box or numeric entry) without a tag doesn't make any sense to the program.

Error 3 - This means you have named at least two items md250. This could be a tag name, or the name of a screen object. In either case, you have to find the duplicate and delete it.

Hope this helps,
EE

 

[NickBirke]

Thanks...

Few questions and remarks...

1. How do you flush the wincc cache?
2. Yah I have a good idea what tags are... the md250 tag is not in the tag table... if it were being used in an object... you would have to select from the tag table wouldn't you?
3. Please recall in my original post I DO have an IO field with that exact name, it has a tag assigned... and it does work.
4. Oh on the no "So system function defined for job..." wow if that could be an event that is not configured you would have to comb through every object that has an event... it is a good thing this is just a testbed project.
5. It would be nice if these messages had a little more detail in them... gee it wouldn't be that hard for them to do it.
6. Yah I don't really like anything about Siemens so far... I have done a good deal of PLC work in my time and I have never seen a PLC language that was so cryptic, and over-complicated... nor HMI software that seems so... not just buggy... but does not have an easy way to do basic things. It took me for ever to get an understanding of the memory and timers out of another forum... between the timers themselves using S5TIME and even the IEC timers... I can see how anyone cannot be inspired to write a custom function block as a wrapper for the (more likely an IEC timer) for reuse, to have a timer that behaves normally. I really don't like this stuff but I am getting it. The only people who say "S5TIME really isn't that bad, its actually better... but maybe that's cause I am used to it." It is bad... and they are in denial! It's unbelievable... even if you convert S5TIME to a double or an integer in the PLC for display... it will be a number that considers the time-base of the S5TIME... good luck with that... probably something that can be compensated for, but with an unnecessary amount of work.

LASTLY sorry for ranting!

Thanks.

 

[eeprom]

NickBirke,
Here is the command for the flushing of the cache. You have to go to DOS prompt, find the appropriate folder where wincc flexible resides, then type in hmies.exe -reset.

On my computer it looks like this...
C:\Program Files\Siemens\SIMATIC WinCC flexible\WinCC flexible 2007 Micro

hmies.exe -reset

One day you will open the software and everything will be grayed out, you will not be able to open anything. This is the symptom that you have to clear the cache. It happens to me about once a year.

Also, don't give up on Siemens software so soon. I use Allen Bradley, Siemens and IDEC. Despite its inherent bugginess, the Siemens software has a lot more functionality than Rockwell and IDEC.

 

[NickBirke]

Yah I can see there is a lot of stuff there... for the PLC... but it seems to be rather obfuscated. Too many ways to put something together, and documentation is very much--- all interface explanation (written like a straight API doc...) and any examples are usually given with no or little context.

Wincc is terrible ASAIAC. There is a limited number of objects to work with... and on top of that... some of them are not very powerful... or they are "too" controlled... without enough properties to change their behavior. Then other things cannot be pinned to a script via an event... they don't have events!

Here is an annoying example... what if you just want a simple textbox for input that isn't directly attached to a tag... all there is is the IO Field which requires a tag... if you don't have a tag the compiler gets pissed. It is really dumb... unless I am missing something?

 

[NickBirke]

by the way... tried the reset... still have the two compiler warnings... still "duplicate tag" error if i add a tag with name md250

 

[eeprom]

Have you looked through the object browser? I can't remember where it is, but you can look at all the objects on each page. You can sort them according to name or other property. This might help. I wish I could tell you where the browser is, but it's been six months since I've been in that software.

 

[NickBirke]

Object browser... doesn't ring a bell.

I'll have to fish through the software when I get to the office tomorrow.