Point of View Do-more Part 2: Tag Integration from AutomationDirect

In this video we’ll use the tag integration method to bring Do-more tags into a point of view project so we can control and monitor the Do-more based system. Let’s start a new project. Point of View button, New. I have a folder on My C drive I’m using for these demo projects – but you can put yours anywhere you want. Looks like I have two licenses available, we’ll use the 1000 tag license for this project. We’re going to use a small screen so it is easy for us to see in this video. You would want to choose the screen size that works best for you. Now beware, you need to pick this wisely – it is NOT easy to change later … Great we have a new empty project that we can use to talk to a Do-more series controller. Let’s flip over to a Do-more project. Here’s a simple little project that will allow Point of View to control this output coil by writing to this Motor_Enable tag, display the status of that motor coil with an indicator, set a numeric value to drive this coil, and display the scaled version of an analog input. All of the basic kinds of operations you would normally want to do. All we do is export those tags to a file. When talking to Point of View, make sure you select the C-more version of the CSV file. You can put it where ever you want, but you will save yourself some major headaches if you put it in your Point of View project folder. That’s because every time you start the development software, Point of View re-loads the tags from this file. If you develop the app on your computer and let’s say you put the tag file in your documents folder. Then you send the app to someone else to work on. Well, Point of View won’t be able to find the tags on his PC because it will be trying to find YOUR documents folder on your PC. And when it doesn’t find the tags, it DELETES THEM and now you have to start over. So we’re going to avoid those headaches and drop this CSV file into the point of view project folder, and we’ll call it Do-more_Tags. Click Save and we are done. Back in Point of View under the Project tab we want to communicate with a PLC so we click the communication button. And in this Tag Integration section click on ADD. This is for a Do-more Series controller so I’ll select that one. This Name field will be the name of the folder the tags are stored under in Point of View so let’s call this Do-more for the Do-more controller that these came from. You might want to give it a more descriptive name like Pump Controller or Turbine Controller – whatever makes sense to you. Click ADD and enter the address of the controller. We need to select the exported tag file which we put in our project folder. And hit OK. Hit OK again and we’re done! So all we’ve done so far is export the tags from the Do-more software and then tell Point of View where to find them using this Communications Dialog. That’s all there is to it. Let’s build a simple app to test it. Right click on screens to insert a new screen into the project. Give it a name and hit ok. Let’s use a pushbutton to enable the conveyor motor. Under the graphics tab, symbols, system symbols, pushbuttons – let’s grab this one, drop it on the screen and double click to bring up its properties. Let’s change this command tag to the Motor Control tag from the Do-more Controller. The command tag is the one that will be written to the Do-more when we push the button. The Do-more tags will be under DEVICES in that folder we named ‘Do-more’ back when we setup the import in the communications dialog. We want the nicknames folder and there it is. Double click on that to select it. We want the same tag to control the look of the switch so I’ll just copy and paste that here. Let’s add an indicator so we can see if the Motor is getting enabled. Graphic tab, symbols, pilot lights, and we’ll double click on this green one. Drop it on the screen. Double click on it and change the pre-assigned tag to the Motor Tag from the Do-more. Notice that tags we have NOT used yet are grayed out. Let’s try what we have so far. Before we do that, let’s modify the viewer so it doesn’t take up the whole screen. Project Tab, Viewer, let’s select the title bar so we can drag the window around, the usual controls and we DON’T want to start maximized and we do want to be able to resize the window. Great. Save the screen, give it a name. Run it. Let’s re-size that so we can see it. Toggle the Switch and sure enough the output on the Controller responds. Perfect. Let’s send a numeric value to the Do-more to control this coil. Graphics. Text Box. Double click. Browse our tags. Select the Ultrasonic tag. We do want to be able to enter a number into this text box so make sure this checkbox is checked. And let’s add a Numeric display so we can monitor this scaled temperature from the Do-more controller. Text Box, Double click. Browse the tags. Select the called Temperature Tag. We’re not entering numbers into this text box so we’ll un-check this is NOT an input box, so we’ll uncheck this guy. Let’s try that. Save. Run. And sure enough if we enter a value greater than 75 it appears down on the Do-more and controls this coil. And if I change this analog value on the Do-more, that appears up here in Point of View. Perfect. Well, you get the idea. To connect Point of View to a Do-more series controller, just export the tags using the generic C-more option, tell Point of View where to find them using that communications dialog and then use them just like any other tag. There are a couple things you need to be aware of when using Tag Integration with a Do-more controller, so be sure to check out part 3 of this series before using Tag Integration. It’ll save you a lot of time and frustration. If you need any help, please call AutomationDirect’s Free, Award winning tech support during regular business hours – they will be happy to help. And don’t forget the forums – there are lots of folks there that love to share their years of experience. Just don’t post any questions directed at AutomationDirect’s support team there, they don’t monitor the forums on a regular basis.