I’m using this display for the first time and I honestly don’t understand if this is normal in the industry or is just B&R manking user’s life difficult.
It’s like they sell a Windows system, branded B&R, with no tools inside, so good luck in making it to communicate with the plc in a easy way.
I use a browser, in kiosk mode, to visualize the mappview interface that runs on my plc.
Let’s say I successfully setup UWF, automatic user login, automatic browser startup in kiosk mode.
Then what happens if the user changes the PLC ip address? how do you handle that?
I have to write windows scripts and ST scripts to make something that should be seamless in a professional system integration!!!
The monitoring windows script detects if a variable changed plc side, via PVI monitor. then calls another script that changes the display network card ip address to match the new one.
THEN, again, calls another script that must change the ip address the browser points to.
if using two hardware devices, one with Windows + an embedded PLC, the way you describe what you do if changing IP addresses is more or less the same that I did in past when using such configurations.
The’re other solutions thinkable which could make it easier (maybe not at every point, but one some), for example
“using Windows + AR on the same device (hypervisor) - internal network addresses doesn’t change”
“using PLC as DHCP Server + Windows as DHCP Client (or vice versa) + using the Hostname instead of the IP address in Browser”
maybe others I’m not aware of
… but all of those solutions can and will have of course other restrictions based on “hardware that can be used / has to be used for whatever reason”, “software that can be used / installed”, “machine is operating in a shopfloor network or not” , and so on.
But honestly spoken, maybe I don’t got your expectations right?
It is exactly like you said:
If the AP5000, or to be precise the system where the AP5000 is linked to (APCxxxx / PPCxxxx, because AP5000 is just a display) is used with a GPOS (General Purpose Operating System), then it’s like using “any other industrial grade Windows-based hardware” together with a B&R PLC:
the PLC hosts the logic plus the visualization server, the GPOS system hosts the browser, the interlink and setup between are network topics
there’s no more specialized software in between or available (because not mandatory needed) to do other things then the tasks dedicated to the belonging operating system on the device.
Having a B&R PC with a GPOS system Windows, then you have:
industrial grade hardware developed by B&R
Windows 11 IoT designed by B&R including dedicated PC and Display hardware drivers, UWF support, and some other special W IoT things
nothing less, nothing more → it’s “just” a industrial grade W11 IoT device usable for many different use-case like “run my own software”, “install other Windows stuff”, “install 3rd Party SCADA systems”, “use the browser for displaying web-based content (including mappView)”, and so on.
My question about this is:
did anybody from us (B&R or Partner) told you something different? Then it should be clearified very soon and I would propose then contacting you local sales representative.
Because as I know, there has never been any other intended use when using a GPOS B&R PC system together with a (B&R or 3rd party) PLC connected via a network beyond the described ones above, that follow a very general GPOS approach on purpose.
to be fair, the local sales person was very clear about it. it’s not his fault.
The display is sold as-is, and the developer must go through hell to find a professional solution to make it usable with the other parts of the system (B&R!!! not 3rd party!).
I don’t completely agree with your “it’s just a display”. T30 is just a display, and it would have been perfect for my use-case, if only it was bigger. AP5000 is just a very expensive, general use W iot computer. Sure, as you said, there are many different use-cases, but I think communication between 2 different B&R piece of hardware should be addressed by B&R and not by the customer.
I, as loyal B&R user, am pushed, if I need a bigger size display, to buy this over-complicated piece of hardware because nobody in B&R is willing to offer a solution to make the 2 hardware devices communicate a bit more flawlessly. To be honest, for the next project I will look into non-B&R solutions, no offense. I don’t see reasons to pay this amount of money for this type of display (for my use-case).
many thanks for clarification of your use-case and the story behind!
I see & understand both sides of the medal now better (and it really wasn’t meant as “blaming sales”, it was just for my better understanding if there’s a lack of knowledge or misunderstanding in a early stage of a project or similar ).
Unfortunately I don’t know if anything is planned in future in that direction.
But it’s a very valuable market feedback for us, I would really recommend to give your sales contact some feedback again (additionally referencing this thread) so that he can place a product request if not already happened.
).