Lab 6: Operating Human Machine Interface Part 1

Now that we have learned the basics of coding and operating simple tasks, in this lab, we will learn how
to add and code a Human Machine Interface screen and do basic design on the screen.

To Begin, we will need to add an HMI screen to the project.

Adding an HMI Screen:

1. Open your project file and enter the Device & networks tab
2. Select Add new device and choose the HMI option and name it HMI_1
3. In the HMI drop down menu, select SIMATIC Basic Panel
4. From there, select 6” Display, then KTP600 Basic
5. Select “6AV6 647-0AD11-3AX0”, version 12.0.0.0

Click Next and the HMI wizard will appear. There are 6 required steps must be completed in this wizard
set up (see below).
Communication: This option allows you to create a connection with a PLC in which you will be
operating with.

Click Browse to find the PLC that HMI will connect to. On the drop down choose PLC1 and connect. This
is the most important step, so choose the right PLC for your project. Click next.
Screen Layout: Here you can select the background color and headers.

White tends to work better as a background color. So select White and check both of the Headers. Once
done, click Next.

Alarms: Here you can select type of alarms you would want to see.

Select all 3 options then click next.

Screens: Here you can create add more screens and sub-screens

We want 9 sub screens from the root screen. Click the plus [ + ] button located at root screen 9
times.
System screens: System screens are pre made screens that has information about your project.

Select all screens to be displayed.

Buttons: These are shortcuts that allow you to access essential functions

You can customize the order of the buttons by dragging them to the bottom sections of the Preview
window. It is suggested to have Start screen and Exit as a default. Click Finish when done.
Configuring and Practicing:
Go to PLC_1 then into Device Configuration. From there, open the Properties option then enter Systems
and clock memory. Enable to Clock memory bits.

Download to your PLC

Now that you have successfully configured your HMI screen, go to the root screen by going to the
project tree on the left and opening the HMI drop down menu. Double click root screen to open.

At the root screen, you can see all the different tabs for your sub screens.

There is a tool box on the right hand side for you to work with.

Basic objects

Elements

Controls
Now to test to see if your screen is linked to your PLC, we will create a clock byte on Root screen:

1. Drag an I/O field from Elements to the root screen.

2. In the properties of the I/O field click text format and choose Center for text.
3. Also the properties of I/O field, click PLC tag default table, then assign “Clock_Byte” as the
address.

4. The clock bytes indicate the communication between HMI and PLC
5. Before starting the simulator for the HMI screen, you will first need to download to your PLC
and start the simulator for the PLC
6. Once done, you can now open the HMI simulator
7. If done correctly, the I/O field should be changing in real time
 8. Save the file

Lab 7: Operating Human Machine Interface Part 2

Since we have the HMI configured and communicating with the PLC, now we will start playing with
different objects in the toolbox to get familiar with them.

Practicing with different objects:

We will start off by going entering Screen1 from the Project Tree. This will be under Screens in the HMI
drop down menu.

1. First we will need to rename the screen from “Screen1” to “FirstScreen”. We can do this by right
clicking on the screen name in the menu and selecting rename.
2. After that is done, begin playing with the objects from toolbox menu on the right.
3. Grab Line object and drag it across the screen. Enter the object’s properties and examine the
Appearance option. Play around with the options (ie. Color, width, style, arrow).

4. Now grab the text field and add it to the screen. Here, we will type “My First Screen”. Enter the
objects properties and change the text color to black. Examine the rest of the options and play
with it.
5. Grab the various shapes and place it on the screen. Play with the size and properties.
6. Finally, grab the Graphic View and place it on the screen. Here, we can enter the properties and
select what graphics we want in the field. The option at the bottom (left) in General
allows us to upload our own image.

7. Click save and begin the simulation. Observe the FirstScreen.

Here is how the simulator should look like.

Now that we got screen 1 configured, we will now practice with screen 2. We will link this with the
RideControlFC1 (Lab 2) and have flashing lights and controllable buttons.

Note: Do not use real world addresses.

Linking the HMI with the PLC programs:

1. Highlight Screen 2 and rename it RideControlFC1
2. Once done, enter the screen by double clicking it
3. From here, we will add 2 buttons and 3 circles to act as lights
4. Rename one of the buttons to “Stop Ride” and the other to “Start Ride” by double clicking them.
We will need to add an I/O field under each of the button.
5. Now that’s set, we will link the buttons to the RideControlFC1 tags. This is done by entering the
properties of the buttons. Select Stop Ride button and enter its properties.
6. Under the Events Tab, enter the Press option and add function “Invert Bit”. Link this function to
“HMIRideControl_Stop11” tag. Do the same thing for the Release option.

7. Now under animation, make the button turn red when its 1 and green when its 0. Tag this color
change to the Motor.
 8. Repeat the previous steps with Start Ride button. But invert the color to 0 as red and green as 1.
9. Now enter the I/O field properties under the Stop Ride button. Here we will link this field with
the same tag as the button respectfully. This is done under the General Tab and display format
set to Binary. Set Mode to Output only.

10. Repeat with the Start Ride I/O field.

11. Download and start simulator and test the buttons. The I/O should show a “0” when pressed.

Now since we got the buttons linked, we can get the circles to flash.

Circles as Light:
1. On the same screen, place a text field next to each circle and rename it “Motor”, “JumpOut 1”,
and “JumpOut 2” respectfully.
2. Enter the properties of the Motor circle and enter the apperence option. Just like we did for the
button display, we will set bit 1 to show green and 0 to red.
3. Link this to “HMIRideControlDB11_Motor11”.
 4. Repeat this for the other 2 circles but link the circle to its respected tags.
5. Download and save. Start simulation and test.

Lab 8: Operating Human Machine Interface Part 3

Till now, we have configured 2 screens, one for practice and another linking to the PLC. Now we will play
with indicators, inputs, and graphs.

For this lesson, we will link the objects to internal tags instead of real Analog inputs.

Making a level indicator linked with an I/O field:

1. First we will start by adding a new tag in the HMI. Under HMI tags, add a tag and name it
Analog01. Set the data type to INT.
2. Now go to screen 3 and rename it Level Input.
3. Find the Bar object and also an I/O field and place it on the screen.
4. Enter the Bar object and under general tag, set the tag to Analog01. Here we will set the max to
100 and min to 0.

5. Now enter the I/O field properties and set the tag to Analog01. Mode should be set to
Input/Output, Display to decimal, and Format pattern to “999”.
 6. Download and test. We should be able to input a value into the I/O field from the simulator
when we click it.

Next we will work with the trend graph to see how the data change in the level indicator will affect the
trend.

Trend Graph:
1. Go to screen 4 and rename it View Trend Graph.
2. Find the Trend View object and place it on the screen.
3. Enter its properties and add a new trend. Configure Source settings to Analog01. Leave
everything else as is.
4. In the Right/Left value axis option on the left, set axis start to 0 and end to 100. In Time axis, set
interval to 100 and axis mode to time.
5. Download and start simulation. Go into the Level Input screen first and enter a value. Then go
into the Trend Graph screen and observe the graph change.
6. Save the project.
Lab 9: Operating Human Machine Interface Part 4
The final lab to this class will be about Alarms. This is a very important part for a manufacturing facility.
The alarm screen indicates if there is any errors within the system, such as a broken connection,
malfunctioned equipment, or if a unit has reached it max or min. This allows the operator to
troubleshoot the issue with ease knowing the general direction to look at.

Alarm:
1. Enter the PLC tag and add a new tag, Name it “AlarmWord” and set the data type to Word. Set
the address to “%MW60”
2. Now go to the HMI tag and add a new tag named “AlarmWord” as well. Connection set to
HMI_Connection_1 and PLC tag set to “AlarmWord”.
3. Under Discrete alarms, set an example alarm with name Tank Level High. Alarm class is set to
Errors and Trigger Bit to 0.
4. Now go to screen 5 and rename it Alarms.
5. Find the Alarm View and insert it into the screen. Also grab an I/O field and place it under the
alarm window.
6. For the I/O field, set the tag to AlarmWord with Mode to Output.
7. Display format is set to decimal and format pattern to “9999999999999999”.
8. In the alarm window under General option, check Errors, Warnings, and System. In Columns
option, check all visible columns except for Acknowledgement group, Diagnosable, and Devices.
9. Save the project.