2. Faceplate Technology
What is a faceplate?
Why use a faceplate?
A faceplate is a group of HMI objects arranged and combined into a single
object by the programmer.
These faceplate objects can be tailor made to your specific needs.
Faceplates are reusable from project to project.
Faceplates, if setup with a UDT interface, only have to be tagged out once.
Once this type of faceplate has been tagged out and debugged you never
have to do it again.
Tremendous time savings during development, startup and life cycle.
3. Faceplate Technology
The following are a few faceplates I have created. These faceplates
utilize an HMI UDT in their interface.
24. HMI UDT
An HMI UDT is a data type created by the programmer
In these examples, my UDT is structured exactly the same as my
instance data block in my controller
You can then use this UDT to create faceplates with an interface
that matches a corresponding function block in your controller
Why??? Because you only have to tag out the faceplate objects
once. From then on all you have to do is copy and paste the
faceplate and point it to its data block.
Let’s get started…
29. Using the faceplate
Create a tag, assign the data type, point it to correct data block
Drag and drop the faceplate from the library onto an area of the
screen.
Assign it to the tag.
Done.
One object with one tag…
