C-more Micro HMI Bitmap Button from AutomationDirect

The Bitmap Button is identical in function to the “Indicator Button” that we discussed in a previous video, except with the Bitmap Button you can choose a built in graphic OR your own graphics for the on and off states. Just like the indicator button – when the user presses the Bitmap Button it sets its associated TAG – the FAN TAG in this case – to ON. The PLC then sets the Indicator TAG to confirm receipt – which is reflected by the graphic indicator on the bit map button. This provides positive feedback to the user and assures him that his request was received by the PLC. Here’s a color example so you can see what that might look like. Same exact operation, in fact those two original buttons are right here, you just have a lot more artistic freedom both in the area you have to work with and the color pallet. Even though this is only a 4” panel, it has over 9 times the screen area of a 3” panel simply because it is a much higher resolution. Let’s walk through an example of setting up a 3” panel. Double click or drag the Bitmap Button Object onto the screen. Or if you see one you like down here in the parts list you can drag that right onto the screen and save yourself some time setting things up. We’ll go ahead and make our own for this example … Select the graphic you want to use by clicking on the DISK button for the off state – we’ll use the alarm clock here and set a black background – then choose the graphic for the on state – we’ll use the same alarm clock but this time we use the white background. You can test that using the little mini simulator here – you can see the only difference here is we have a black background for one and a white background for the other. You can choose your aspect ratio, if you want to stretch to fit here, and the alignment options down here. We need to select the two TAGs, one the button modifies and the one the indicator monitors. Note that you can use the SAME TAG for both – then this button will act just like a regular pushbutton, but instead of text on the indicator we’ll have a graphic – this is how you create a Graphic Pushbutton! So… let’s see – for this guy we’ll choose the FAN TAG for the button to modify, and we’ll choose the FAN indicator for the button to monitor to tell when to change the graphic. Other than that everything else works just like the Indicator Button, so we won’t repeat all of the switch actions and things like that here. Hit OK. Resize the button a little bit - Simulate it, save the project … and up pops the simulator with our new graphic button. This switch is controlling the FAN Tag, so when we click on the switch, it changes the TAG. The PLC would then change the indicator TAG which would update the indicator on the graphic. So now you have a full closed loop system where you can be assured the PLC received that button press. Let’s take a look at how to setup a color example … We go to our navigation windows function tab … panel manager – and we simply change the panel type here. We’ll choose a four inch color panel. Say OK – it’s asking: do we want to leave everything the same size as it was? Sure, why not – and there’s our four inch panel. Again, the four inch panel has a lot more screen area than the 3 inch panel – these two objects took up almost the entire area of the 3 inch panel, now look how much room you have to play with! Now to do a color bitmap button, we can select color graphics directly from the parts list – as usual - we just need to assign a TAG. Let’s use the OVEN and OVEN INDICATOR TAGs. OR, we can create our own bitmap, of course. Let’s bring in the generic button, and select some images from the disk. Let’s see .. for the OFF state – let’s find something colorful here – how about a STOP sign … and for the ON state lets select something else colorful, like a green check mark. For this button, let’s use the FAN TAG – that’s the TAG this button will modify … and let’s use the FAN INDICATOR for this button to monitor to know when to change the graphic. Say OK, Simulate it, save the project … and up pops our new four inch screen with our new bitmap buttons. If we click on THIS button which is modifying the OVEN tag, the TAG changes. The PLC would then change the indicator Tag to indicate that it received that button press. Likewise on our little checkmark stop button this guys is going to set the FAN tag – and then the FAN Indicator TAG changes the indicator. One final note – if we look at one of these buttons … you’ll notice there is a transparent color you can select. Right now the color is selected to be white. You can turn that off and there will be no transparency – if you turn it on the anything that is this color will be transparent on this object. You need to be careful with that though, because what looks like white on this display is actually a gradient that is going from white to gray. So very little of this graphic is white – which means very little of this graphic is going to be transparent. So be careful when you use that transparency operation. Normally for graphics like this, you would want that transparency to be off. That’s it for this video – be sure to check out all of the other videos in this series. And as always, please send us any topics you would like to see covered – or - any other comments for that matter – we appreciate the feedback!