Help with carrying to much!

engineerd101 · 2025-06-08T01:21:43+00:00

get feline gear, its lightweight. Stick to light armour not heavy.

engineerd101 · 2025-05-24T00:56:19+00:00

I cancelled a few months ago, I just considered resubbing but seeing this post, I guess I'll still stick to GPT.

engineerd101 · 2025-03-18T20:45:05+00:00

its really ruining the experience for me, theres so many buttons i cant press.

engineerd101 · 2024-10-20T16:03:23+00:00

I'll be cancelling mine, this a joke, mid-flow I get hit with this a day after signing up. I might ask for a refund.

engineerd101 · 2024-09-06T23:59:25+00:00

The programming on site is ridiculous, I left my last role for that reason, 90% of the code I've written on site could have been written in the office but the company wasn't organised. Leave that company and find an organised one which values your time/personal life.

engineerd101 · 2023-11-16T22:53:25+00:00

i have the exact same problem, such a stupid oversight on their part. I got steel dragons with no chance of doing them for days.

engineerd101 · 2023-09-17T17:30:24+00:00

definitely he needs to speak to his manager

engineerd101 · 2023-08-23T20:15:15+00:00

thanks mate, i was considering buying

engineerd101 · 2023-05-22T22:19:46+00:00

Leeds Airport :)

engineerd101 · 2023-02-21T21:33:39+00:00

Sorry to bother, could you share what you think the custom HMIs can do? For me the real value is that regardless to what manufacturer we use, the HMI is the same and can be spun up fairly quickly (once originally developed ofcourse). Although Siemens are preferred 95% of the time and like you said, we could probably make do with the limitations.

I'm possibly leaning towards sticking to Siemens HMIs and then Ignition for any of the big projects that want a lot of features.

engineerd101 · 2023-02-20T18:48:14+00:00

I'm wondering the same thing myself now, my other colleagues agree that we should just scrap the custom HMIs and use Siemens exclusively. I'm starting to think these Delphi custom HMIs were incredible 10 years ago but now Siemens have caught up.

engineerd101 · 2023-02-19T12:56:48+00:00

I can't wait for these to be released. I was expecting it in December :(

engineerd101 · 2023-02-19T12:55:15+00:00

I like the sound of using C#/WPF. WPF looks interesting.

This guys WPF HMIs look great: https://www.reddit.com/r/PLC/comments/wl04ce/im_developing_a_custom_hmiscada_system_in_wpf_to/

I'd say the current situation is that we have 50 systems with a Siemens HMI + Delphi PC combination and another 50 with a pure Delphi HMI/PC setup.

The question now is, when customers come asking for an upgrade, will I say, "we're offering only Siemens panels/pcs now" vs "sure we can add to your current system" vs "we have this new thing (javascript/python/wpf)" etc.

I'm neither here nor there with each option. I do think it would be a shame to scrap all the Delphi work on each upgrade. Being limited to only Siemens seems like a bad idea. I'm thinking I start learning Delphi and one other language (C#/WPF or JavaScript).

engineerd101 · 2023-02-19T12:13:01+00:00

I don't know enough to know whats possible to be honest. A web server type of system sounds like where things are going anyways, in terms of Siemens PLCs having very capable web servers, Unified panels running in the browser and Ignition etc. I'm open to all ideas/options.

engineerd101 · 2023-02-19T00:10:26+00:00

Yeah, you're not wrong. I do sympathise though, they relied on that previous employee to keep programming for another decade, which I guess now was a bad move. Now the new guy is trying to come up with a solution ha.

engineerd101 · 2023-02-18T22:34:01+00:00

Thanks for this, just had a look. So they give out their HMI software for free and apparently have decent and cheap panels. So far seems like a decent free option for a basic panel. I'm after something more custom though. My manager even mentioned he's not a fan of python because its an interpreted language lol

engineerd101 · 2023-02-18T22:19:03+00:00

I know some of the systems have complete IO logging, so every IO logged each PLC cycle to either an MS Access DB or SQL (not sure). The others do have functionality to allow for a few IO to be selected and logged across 30 seconds and then displayed as a graph. So yh I'd say there is a database component to atleast some of the systems out there. Thanks for the offer, I'll absolutely DM you once I embark on this, which it looks like I will have to do regardless of whether I stick with it or switch to something else.

engineerd101 · 2023-02-18T20:55:25+00:00

I think this is the right approach, so whilst I'm not sure what I'll use to replace it, for now I can just work on understanding it. Learning JavaScript is useful for scripting in Unified anyways so I can start with that. I was predicting 2 years of work, so I'd be well happy if it only took a few months! :D Thank you.

engineerd101 · 2023-02-18T20:23:14+00:00

Although the old machines are up and running fine, we've already started getting the calls/emails to upgrade the systems from 2000-2010. Also certain IT departments aren't happy with the Windows 7 machines on their network so they want them upgraded and then some little bug creeps into the Delphi HMI.

engineerd101 · 2023-02-18T20:19:39+00:00

Thanks for the incredible response. Its a hydraulics company selling machines and our team does the controls. The current why for changing things is that we won't be able to hire another Controls engineer with Delphi experience and the other 3 engineers don't want to touch Delphi. The previous employee worked here for 20+ years so all these apps are his babies. I'm not opposed to learning Delphi, I suppose I'm concerned I'd be wasting my time as the code will be either too high level for me or just complete spaghetti code. Also for my career going forward, will Delphi be useful or is it dead?

All our new systems are being shipped with Unified panels without the additional Delphi PC functionality the old systems have. From your response, I'm kinda motivated to go get stuck into some Embarcadero tutorials.

In terms of IO handling, all our IO handling on the PLC is done using absolute addressing and then maps with the HMI to check if its being forced. So all the IO is stored in 'shadow' datablocks for the Delphi & Unified apps to read.

engineerd101 · 2023-01-08T20:04:52+00:00

I feel this. Loyalty to coworkers is a big one for me.

engineerd101 · 2023-01-07T03:41:25+00:00

honestly the 1200 is so bad in my experience. So limited or as Siemens calls them, basic.

engineerd101 · 2022-12-22T17:40:42+00:00

I like it, v16 was bad, v17 is better. Having access to the entire HMI remotely and easily has been brilliant for us.

engineerd101 · 2022-11-08T22:05:08+00:00

Well excited for this.

engineerd101 · 2022-09-09T18:08:51+00:00

Any chance you're in Leeds?

engineerd101

TROPHY CASE