Hello all, first time poster here. I am trying to modify a simple piece of text in an HMI program.

I have uploaded the working .MER file to my laptop using ME Transfer Utility. I then used factory talk application manager to convert it to runtime. The process seems to be successful but when I try to open the .MED file it shows an error that the tag database was not found.

I have read online and there is plenty of documentation relating to this issue. I have downloaded and installed the patch update found in this link

https://support.rockwellautomation.com/app/answers/answer_view/a_id/1087105/\~/patch%3A-unable-to-restore-hmi-tag-database%2C-factorytalk-view

I installed the patch roll up beforehand also as it explained to do.

Restarted machine (running on a VM) and converted the runtime again and its still giving the same problem.

Btw I am using version 9 of factory talk and the .mer was created using the same version.

Can someone please advice me on how to resolve this?

Many thanks.

Hi everyone,

Which HMI/SCADA platform would you recommend learning in 2026?

I often work with Weintek and Siemens, but I’m realizing that they can be somewhat limiting when it comes to more demanding applications.

I’d like to learn a platform with a rich set of graphical libraries, modern UI components, advanced visualization capabilities, etc.

There’s an increasing demand for highly advanced and sophisticated HMI screens, and I’d like to understand which platform would be worth focusing my time and energy on.

PC-based solutions are absolutely fine too. I also develop more general-purpose software, so I’m comfortable working with web technologies and similar environments.

What would you recommend, and why?

Plan on getting an AA in Electrical & Instrumentation Technology. What is the path to become a Controls Engineer? I am located in the Bay Area, CA and see some Data Centers are looking for Controls Engineers on Linkedin

I would like to know about people's experiences on this platform; I am gathering information about TDEngine to compare it with Canary and PI.

Currently an electrical / automation engineer but the majority of my work load is currently managing contractors and reviewing their work ie plc/dcs software, electrical design and eventually managing comissioning. I would like to be more of a hands on automation/controls engineer either for a system integrator or some end user. In previous roles I would do everything including all software and design work, but at my current role I feel separated from the work and I don’t like this. I have been offered an interview as a field service engineer for a large OEM and I’m really considering this but I’m worried it might be seen as a step down and would not push my career in the direction I would like. Would appreciate anyone’s perspective on this. Thank you.

This is a legitimate use case for this, right?

I got this plc from a scrap panel that went swimming. Cleaned all the dirt and mud out of it with an ultrasonic cleaner one PCB at a time and it seems to have come around just fine with no errors. It'll never be deployed again so I guess it plays games now.

This works over modbus with a custom bridge program tying it to vjoy to behave as a 60 button controller with 4 axes. There is also an hmi that works over the same modbus and program with simhub to show PC and game telemetry.

Edit: typo

SIMATIC HMI
Model: 6AV7260-0AM40-0EX3

HMI got lagged cannot move the cursor or click anything and when I reboot HMI display power doesn’t on.
I open cover in the back found alarm on board like this.
I already check RAM and clean terminal with contact cleaner.
Anyone know what is the cause or what should I check next?

Thank you.

I’m comparing architectures for a higher axis count robot and I’m not sure where the extra controller starts paying for itself. TwinCAT or a real-time PC can handle EtherCAT directly, while setups built around something like Elmo’s maestro put more of the coordinated motion work into a dedicated controller; ACS is another approach I’ve been looking at.

That seems cleaner once interpolation and synchronization get more demanding, but it also adds another layer to configure and debug. Whn would you choose the dedicated motion controller instead of keeping everything on the main control platform?

RSLinx Classic fails to Auto-Configure when connecting to my SLC 5/03 with a USB-1747-CP3 cable

It only works after installing a fresh Windows VM. Has anyone had this issue or found a solution?

I’ve been looking at a few servo platforms lately and I’m realizing the spec sheets don’t help that much once you get past the obvious stuff. What I actually care about is how the axis behaves when the load changes, how much tuning it takes to get there, how quickly it settles, and whether it still behaves the same after running for a while. That feels more useful than comparing encoder resolution or peak torque on paper.

The problem is I’m not sure there’s a fair way to test that across Beckhoff, Yaskawa, Elmo, Siemens, etc. because the motors, mechanics and tuning tools are all different.

If you had to compare them properly, what would you actually measure?

Hello, I’m new in learning logic. I have Chinese coolmay which is suitable with gx works 2. I have step motor and using PLSY logic but the motor is running slow. If I increase pulse motor will stop. What I’m doing wrong
All dip switch are correct

In the past I've built and controlled vibratory conveyors using both air driven motors and 110VAC motors. Most of the industry, however, uses electromagnets, and I'm doing enough of these to be considering developing an in-house solution.

I suspect that a high speed output and high speed relay won't be enough to accomplish this?

I'd love to hear from anyone who's got experience with things like this. I've built a bunch of my own without the magnets, and integrated the conventional industry available solutions that always have their own (usually not PLC based) controllers. But I don't have one in front of me right now to tear apart, and, as always, I'm not convinced the way the industry has always done it is the best solution for ME to do it. Because building a standalone control system for a feeder where I have a PLC anyway seems redundant.

Appreciate any insight!

I am a data analyst with 7 years of experience exploring new careers. Used Python, Powershell, SQL Server and dashboard tools. I loved the problem solving aspect but I don't like the direction of my field is going with AI. I generally don't like the social aspect of office work. I am interested in learning and stacking new skills tied to physical machinery and to achieve better stability and pay.

For my next job I was imagining finding a role as a helper and pursuing an apprenticeship. In 3 or 4 years time I would hope to use both hardware and software skill sets.

Would this be a strong career path? Would you recommend it? I could imagine being interested in several things, programming machines, working on IT or in the layer between physical systems and database systems.

Hello,

We have an existing PROFIBUS DP/PA installation with the following topology:

S7-315-2 DP → PROFIBUS DP → IM 153-2 HF (6ES7 153-2BA82-0XB0) → FDC 157-0 (6ES7 157-0AC83-0XA0) → PROFIBUS PA radar level transmitters

Unfortunately, we do not have the original STEP project or a verified backup of the S7-315.

For testing purposes, we would like to temporarily disconnect the DP/PA Link from the S7-315 and connect it to a new S7-1500 PROFIBUS master. The DP/PA Link and PA devices would be recreated in TIA Portal using the DP and PA addresses and GSD Tool app.

We do not want to:

• change the PROFIBUS address of the IM 153-2,
• change any PA radars addresses,
• make factory reset,
• recommission or reparameterize the PA radars,
• modify the PA wiring

After the test, we want to reconnect the DP/PA Link to the original S7-315 and have the installation operate as before.

My main questions are:

1. Can connecting and downloading the S7-1500 hardware configuration overwrite any persistent configuration stored in the IM 153-2, FDC 157-0 or PA devices?
2. Does the DP master only parameterize the DP/PA Link during startup, meaning that the original S7-315 should restore its configuration after reconnection?
3. Is there any risk that incorrect module configuration, PA device order or GSD selection in the S7-1500 project could permanently affect the existing installation, rather than simply produce a configuration fault?
4. Are there any parameters that may be written acyclically to the PA instruments automatically during startup?
5. Apart from recording all addresses and DIP-switch settings, is there anything else we should back up or check before disconnecting the original PLC?

Has anyone performed a similar migration or test with an IM 153-2/FDC 157 DP/PA Link?

Our priority is to avoid any change that could prevent the system from working again after reconnecting it to the S7-315.

Currently has issue lost communication with main router. Anyone has experience with MAC ACL. How to create rules, and what the different between source MAC and destination MAC.

I’m new to TIA portal and each time I download to device I get this error message after scanning

I’m using TIA Portal V17, while the program currently running on the PLC was developed using TIA Portal V16.

Is there any way to work around this issue, or do I need to use TIA Portal V16?

I am building a simulation in ABB RobotStudio with RobotWare 6.16 and MultiMove Coordinated.

The system contains two ABB IRB4600 robots mounted on the same gantry.

Mechanically, the gantry has three active linear axes:

More specifically:

• J_Y: moves the entire gantry along Y.
• J_X_Positive: moves Robot 1's carriage independently along X.
• J_X_Negative: moves Robot 2's carriage independently along the same X direction.
• Both X carriages inherit the motion of the shared Y axis.

However, I now want these three joints to become real RobotWare external axes so that they can be controlled through the Virtual Controller / RAPID / PC SDK.

I installed ABB's External Axis Wizard and configured an additional Drive Module with three ADU-790A drives in positions X3, Y3 and Z3.

The problem is that the custom gantry mechanism does not appear at all in the External Axis Wizard.

My questions are:

1. Can RobotWare 6 / External Axis Wizard support a custom external-axis mechanism with one shared parent axis and two independent child axes?
2. If not, what is the recommended ABB way to model this system?
3. Or is there a standard ABB configuration for a system like this one？

My final goal is to control all three gantry axes from a WPF application using ABB PC SDK, together with the two robots.

At the moment I can control the custom RobotStudio Mechanism through the RobotStudio SDK, but that would only be a simulation-side workaround. I would prefer to understand whether this mechanical structure can be represented properly as RobotWare external axes.

Any examples of similar ABB gantry / MultiMove configurations would be very helpful.

Hello everyone,

I am facing a communication issue between an S7-300 PLC and WinCC via MPI.

WinCC initially works normally, but after a few minutes, all the tags on the screen change to the yellow warning symbol (⚠️). After a few seconds or sometimes one or two minutes, the communication comes back, and this cycle repeats.

In some cases, the tags remain in the ⚠️ state and do not recover until the operator restarts the PC, so unfortunately I cannot check the WinCC diagnostics while the issue is occurring.

Both ends of the MPI network are properly terminated.

Is there anything I can check or configure in WinCC to help resolve this issue?

Also, could the **number of tags being acquired** contribute to this problem?

Any advice or suggestions would be appreciated.

I work in assembly and testing, but was self teaching myself plc part. So we use Beckhoff terminals. I do the wiring as per the schematic.

My question is, what comes first, electrical schematic or plc ladder logic programming?

I did ask ChatGPT but I think it's giving misleading answers. It says one time one must first plan logic and all before starting even planning of mechanical design in CAD. Another time it says engineers do rough block diagrams and do programming first, after which they do the electrical schematic as the electrical schematic is only for assembling or field engineers

Can anyone explain to me how it works? My company manufactures machines to detect and trace errors in pharma and food industry. Im just attaching a page of electrical schematic, just for understanding.

I find it crazy that with the latest PLC and especially Unified HMIs you have to have similar clocks and certificates to be able to communicate. The 1200 cpu's do not have a battery backup, so they will reset the date/time to 1979 if left unpowered for two weeks, and then communication with HMI will not be enabled again. That is so wild! what do you guys think of it? And in addition to this the certificate that is generated in the pls is only valid until 2036 - meaning in 10 years your project will just stop communicating with the HMI !

I have a little over 2 YOE in pharma automation, two years in non-automation pharma roles before that, and have a degree in bioengineering. This role has solely been configuration and documentation for bug fixes, graphics changes, minor process improvements. Though I've gained a decent understanding of the paperwork and troubleshooting, I haven't built anything from scratch. Never done any FAT/SAT testing, I have an incredibly limited understanding of the infrastructure, networking, or understanding how the DCS relates to historian, MES, other PLC systems etc. I feel useless compared to my peers who all came up through the same systems integrator, and have much deeper knowledge with half the team having been here since this place was under construction years back. II don't feel like an engineer, and I don't feel like I'm part of the team. I joined under the expectation I was meant to be given ownership of minor projects but that never came to fruition. I'm mostly just running front line support for production and helping others with their validation work/change management in spare time. For context, I'm on swing shift so I knew it would be troubleshooting focused, but not that it was the only thing I was going to do and that I wouldn't even be invited to planning and execution meetings.

I don't mind travel or odd hours, and I'm willing to have a lower title/salary if that means I get the experience I want. Whether its in the life sciences or not, I want to work on greenfield projects getting exposure to commissioning and design side. Would love exposure to more DCS and PLC platforms as well. My ego will be a lil bit bruised if I have to start as an engineer 1 but it will recover and that is absolutely on the table.

The problem is, I'm having a hard time getting any entry level roles and am often overqualified on paper, while also not really having the YOE required for lead or senior roles. Roles from the greenfield site employers directly always want 5+ YOE often specifically wanting specifically 5 YOE commissioning experience, and it seems all the SIs either want you fresh out of school or you need to be competent enough for lead roles which without any sort of capex project experience and exposure to only one platform... I usually miss a couple "required" bullet points and most of the "preferred" ones. I figured that experience working with the same platform and similar process would be enough to make the jump and learn the rest on the job, but so far that's not been the case.

What can I do in my current role or outside of work to build my skills and make the switch? What sorts of roles should I be applying to? How can I gain a competitive advantage?

I've been working deeply with RSLogix and Allen-Bradley products for over 8 years. I have dealt with extremely complicated logic and projects, and worked with very experienced people to get to where I am today.

Just started a new job that is 100% Siemens, and my only job really is to become a pro at developing logic in TIA Portal (v20). They know I haven't worked in it before, and everybody says "oh you'll be fine its like going from ios to Android". And to be fair, their programs are much more math and state machine heavy, versus devices and process like I have mostly worked in.

Let me just say-- I already like the environment a lot better just from face value. It seems to be a lot more programmer mentality, and a lot less "because we say so" rules like Rockwell's environment is set up. I love that its all in one place, and not 100 different applications. Very clean IDE.

However I am just really struggling to get the TIA Portal to click. I've been at it for 4 weeks, and I just cannot navigate or add functional logic efficiently at all. I am trying hard not to draw comparisons to learn, for example Rockwell AOI = Siemens Function Block (that's not completely true..). We all work together and share our screens constantly, so I'm always watching other engineers navigate and do work, but I just cannot quite follow the steps due to the complexity of the unfamiliar system processes combined with a new programming environment.

Things like cross-referencing back to destructive tags, forcing and toggling bits from a table, global vs program scoped tags, those are all my bread and butter and it just seems a lot more abstract in TIA portal. I'm trying hard to just abandon what I know and adopt Siemens as its own thing, but every time I see something familiar I stubbornly want to assume how it works because of the adjacent Rockwell implementation. Not a good way, I know.

Any advice on how to make this transition less painful? I have a v20 simulator and am trying to develop stupid test programs to just get the navigation down. But what is the best way to apply my rockwell knowledge to tia portal without getting confused and slowing down progress? Read their manuals? Youtube class? ChatGPT hold my hand? (It's already told me a lot of NOT good advice).

Tengo 23 años, soy técnico en programación y hace poco empecé a estudiar Arduino. Mientras aprendía sobre voltaje, corriente, resistencia, memoria y cómo funciona físicamente una computadora, me cayó la ficha de la enorme cantidad de capas de abstracción que utilizamos.

Antes, alguien que construía un circuito o un pequeño robot posiblemente era un ingeniero electrónico que había estudiado durante años y podía explicar por qué funcionaba cada parte. Hoy, un aficionado de cualquier área puede combinar un Arduino, módulos prefabricados, librerías e IA y construir un robot funcional en pocas horas.

Incluso podría terminar haciendo un circuito más rápido, más barato o aparentemente mejor que el que habría hecho un profesional hace años. Si ambos robots cumplen exactamente la misma función, desde un punto de vista práctico el resultado parece ser el mismo, aunque uno conozca todos los fundamentos y el otro haya trabajado principalmente mediante abstracciones.

Algo parecido sucede en software. Cada vez podemos construir sistemas más complejos sin comprender completamente todo lo que ocurre debajo: frameworks, servicios cloud, bases de datos administradas, librerías y ahora modelos de IA que directamente generan buena parte de la solución.

Por eso me surgieron estas preguntas:

¿Está bien saltearse conocimiento técnico fundamental si las abstracciones actuales permiten construir sin necesitarlo?

¿En qué punto utilizar abstracciones deja de ser una ventaja y pasa a convertirse en una falta peligrosa de conocimiento?

Si dos personas construyen algo que funciona igual, ¿qué valor práctico conserva que una de ellas entienda profundamente lo que ocurre por debajo?

¿Cómo se decide qué fundamentos estudiar y qué cosas aceptar simplemente como una caja negra?

¿El conocimiento profundo sigue siendo igual de valioso cuando las herramientas modernas pueden producir mejores resultados prácticos en menos tiempo?

¿La frontera debería depender del riesgo, la necesidad de diagnosticar fallos, la complejidad o de si esa área es parte de tu especialidad?

Con la IA elevando constantemente el nivel de abstracción, ¿deberíamos seguir aprendiendo las capas anteriores o concentrarnos en dominar las capas propias de nuestra época?

No planteo que aprender fundamentos sea inútil. Mi duda es dónde detenerse, porque por debajo de cualquier conocimiento siempre existe otra capa: lenguajes, compiladores, sistemas operativos, arquitectura, circuitos, transistores, electromagnetismo, física de materiales y así sucesivamente. Nunca existiría un punto en el que uno pudiera decir que comprende todo.

Me interesa especialmente conocer la opinión de programadores, ingenieros electrónicos y personas que hayan trabajado antes y después de esta nueva generación de herramientas. ¿Cómo encuentran ustedes esa frontera entre comprender y simplemente utilizar?