Lesson 5: Working with Digital Input Tags

Objectives:

•      Add a digital input tag to the application;

•      Learn about the drawing methods available to digital input tags; and

•      Use the Image Change drawing method for a digital input tag.

Lesson 5 Overview

According to your system plan, the next two pieces of equipment for the Booster Station application page are the booster pump and the compressor. Both the booster pump and the compressor require tags to monitor their state (i.e. running or stopped).

 

Running and stopped states are digital values: a "1" indicates a true or running state, while a "0" indicates a false or stopped state. You will therefore use digital input tags to represent state of both the booster pump and the compressor.

 

In the exercises that follow, you will see the process involved in creating a digital input tag, and how its properties differ from those of an analog input tag. Additionally, you will learn how to save time by making a copy of an existing tag and then reconfiguring the copy to represent a different component. This process will further demonstrate the functionality of the Tag Browser, and its ability to help you speed up your application development.

 

VTS provides equipment bitmaps that include an indicator area to signal the state of the equipment according to the value of the related tag.  For example, the indicator might be green when the tag's value is "1" or "running" and red when the tag's value is "0" or "stopped". Digital input tags have access to an Image Change drawing method that provides this feature. We will therefore use the Image Change drawing method to draw both digital input tags.

Estimated Time

It is estimated that Lesson 5 will take approximately 20 minutes to complete.