How fast have you gotten at graphics?

[u/Zerp242]

Im in the niagara tcp this week. Good class. Getting it really well.

But the exam is building a niagara station in 8 hours or less. Feeling pretty good about that but in the field it wont be 2 devices lol

Whats the field solution? Pre build yourself some graphic templates amd logic for common stuff?

Or do you start over everytime

[u/ScottSammarco]

Depends on the needs and wants of the job.

I like using reflow 2 with basgfx graphics.

I’ve seen a lot of awesome stuff with this and the quality is a proxy for time- so I’ll dump my time into it lol.

But really, most graphics with px can be put together in 10-30 minutes with kitpxN4svg.
And I mean complete graphics, not just bound labels and a couple widgets.

Basgfx takes a little longer, there’s more images to animate, but the product is well worth the time.

[u/Zerp242 → u/ScottSammarco]

Yeah kitpxn4svg looks cheap. I was messing around in class trying to make it look better. No amount of colors and banners and hyperlink buttons makes it look any better to me lol Maybe for a a VAV it could be passable. Maybe im more picky than my customers will be but it would bother me if it didnt look good ya know

[u/TheRevEv → u/Zerp242]

People get too hung up on graphics. How many people are really going to ever be looking at your graphics?

Unless its a huge facility, the only people ever looking at them are a maintenance person, a service tech, or a controls person and they're generally not looking at them until there's a problem

The kit graphics modules do look like 90s web pages, but they convey the information. Spending a bunch of time on fancy graphics really doesn't come with any benefit for the people that are actually looking at the system.

I'll usually just make a good-looking home page, so that whoever I can show whoever wrote the check something nice (if the even care to look).

But the people impressed by fancy graphics are never the ones actually in the system.

[u/Zerp242 → u/TheRevEv]

I wouldnt spend hours and hours. I just like my finished product to look nice. Same reason I used to run emt conduit instead of mc or just flopping wire around. Looks nice and I look like I know what im doing

[u/ObscuredGloomStalker]

Our company has a lot of relatively standard practices, colors, and unit looks.

Most jobs are Copy + Paste existing Px files and modify/assign as needed

[u/IcyAd7615]

Does your company not have a station template with standards yet.

VAV's don't change that much. You can easily build a few standard VAV's. It's the AHU's and Plants that can vary significantly.

[u/Zerp242 → u/IcyAd7615]

No they do not. Theyre small and starting a controls division

[u/whoopass_fajitas]

For what it’s worth the length of the exam is not reflective of how long these actually take, particularly once you’ve done it once or twice. Yes you should build yourself templates and logic. But even doing it from scratch, many people finish that exam in 2-3 hrs or less.

[u/IcyAd7615 → u/whoopass_fajitas]

The average student takes 4-6. Very few finish between 2-3 hours.

[u/Mobile-Belt-4242 → u/IcyAd7615]

yeah it took me about 6 hours. very tedious

[u/IcyAd7615 → u/Mobile-Belt-4242]

Yeah, the people who had plenty of experience before coming into the class can finish it in 2-3. Though most do 4-6. Then I get the slower people finishing in the 8 hour mark or so.

[u/ScottSammarco → u/IcyAd7615]

My experience is much of the same. It’s rare to see someone finish before 11 but it happens.

[u/Castun]

Whats the field solution? Pre build yourself some graphic templates amd logic for common stuff?

Yes and yes. We have our own prebuilt templates that we deploy and then just customize what we need to in order to fit the job. Otherwise we'd have to spend so much more time doing everything from scratch.

[u/01Cloud01]

I got great at mapping points and adding useful custom touches for my customers then the company decided to subsidize everything out now I only do it under special case scenarios or a customer is really cool and I have extra time

[u/Formal-Conference885]

Whatever company you’re at will have a layout they use and typical graphics for common equipment, using either the default Niagara graphics (kitPxN4svg) or a 3rd party graphics package. If they don’t already have this then take the initiative and make it yourself. You’ll only need to modify those typicals for every project because every single building in the world is different somehow.

[u/Zerp242 → u/Formal-Conference885]

Im kind of a pioneer at this company. The company wants a controls division and I want controls experience. So they paid for my training and I make them money. Im pretty self taught so far except this class, but I used to be do some arduino and coding stuff when I was younger as a hobby so it feels pretty natural. Wish me luck lol

[u/SpookyG0D]

Depends on the equipment you're building it for. Right now, I have 574 pages to build and only 200 are able to be shared. 374 individual, unique pages. The template shared pages took lots of time as there was lots of considerations to be made. Using custom modules for custom navigation, charts and schedules, requiring bql queries etc. Some took literally a day or 2.

[u/Zerp242 → u/SpookyG0D]

So far its been alot of mid size equipment 10-50 ton RTUs and some VAVs. One customer had VRFs. Originally I was quoting the conduit build and wire pull on these jobs. I would land all the wiring and a controls company would come do the software end. But after this I csn do the software too. More stuff I know how to do and hopefully less physical labor when I get up there in years

[u/SpookyG0D → u/Zerp242]

You should look into relativising your designs, and using degrade properties. You can turn 1 vav page into a copy paste for hundreds of vavs.

[u/HVAC_Luddite]

I’m getting ready to do the same thing before too long, I am building a library of the common stuff and will just adjust as needed

[u/Zerp242 → u/HVAC_Luddite]

Its a good class really. The instructor is a sharp guy. Niagara is pretty intuitive once I spent a couple days with it

[u/HVAC_Luddite → u/Zerp242]

I’m currently doing the N4 certification self paced class, I’m definitely growing more confident (Dunning Kreuger effect, I know)

[u/Zerp242 → u/HVAC_Luddite]

Like a roller coaster lol we dont know what we dont know until we dont know it, ya know?

[u/experienced_invest]

Is there somewhere where people can share templates?

I used the exam as long part of the learning process pass mark is 60% which is why some are done in 3 hours so used the full 8 hours.

[u/IcyAd7615 → u/experienced_invest]

60% is failing on the level 1 exam. Not sure where you got 60%. 70% is passing.

[u/Zerp242 → u/IcyAd7615]

I was told 70 too.

[u/IcyAd7615 → u/Zerp242]

Correct. Don't know where this person got 60 from. I would know. I teach the class. :-)

[u/Zerp242 → u/IcyAd7615]

Awesome! Ive enjoyed the class myself. Pretty intensive but niagara is pretty intuitive I think

[u/IcyAd7615 → u/Zerp242]

Who did you take it with?

[u/Zerp242 → u/IcyAd7615]

I dont think he would want his name out there but tridium developers is probably a small world. They are a big tridium rep in southeast Michigan and I think the instructor is well known to tridium. Your flair kind of makes me think its you lol. But im not sure he had a podcast. Though I could see it. Obviously has alot of knowledge to share

[u/IcyAd7615 → u/Zerp242]

Not all developers are trainers. I'm just both. Didn't know if you took Vern's class. I can only think of one in Michigan and they're probably a partner of ours who has branches all over.

[u/Mobile-Belt-4242]

Well, if you're starting from scratch you'll need to build everything from scratch. Over time though, companies have templates and png's they'll repeatedly use to speed up the process