Book Image

PLC and HMI Development with Siemens TIA Portal

By : Liam Bee
Book Image

PLC and HMI Development with Siemens TIA Portal

By: Liam Bee

Overview of this book

With automation requirements on the rise, Siemens’ TIA Portal development environment is almost a necessity for any automation engineer. The Totally Integrated Automation (TIA) environment helps seamlessly integrate all things automation, from PLC hardware and software design to HMI development. This book helps you understand the tools available in the TIA toolbox and shows you how to write code effectively. The book begins by introducing you to the TIA environment, covering the layout and tools available. Once you’ve got to grips with the environment, you’ll find out how to create hardware to write programs against, including adding IO modules and assigning memory for input and output. Next, you'll develop logic in all of the languages that TIA Portal offers, such as Ladder, Function Block Diagram, and Structured Text (SCL) (note that Statement List is not covered as a deprecated language), as well as the newest language, Cause and Effect (CEM). You’ll also discover how to store standard code in libraries, creating a version control system that is easy to manage and aids standard design. Finally, following the PLC design chapters, you’ll learn how to develop HMI applications in TIA Portal’s latest unified hardware. By the end of the book, you'll be well equipped to use all of the features that TIA Portal V17 offers.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)
1
Section 1 – The TIA Portal – Project Environment
5
Section 2 – TIA Portal – Languages, Structures, and Configurations
11
Section 3 – TIA Portal – HMI Development
16
Section 4 – TIA Portal – Deployment and Best Practices

What are faceplates?

Just as with a function block in a PLC, a faceplate is a reusable object that can be instantiated with its own parameters. This allows an HMI to reuse objects with interface properties populated with different values. You can see an example of a faceplate instantiation in the following screenshot:

Figure 11.1 – Example of faceplate instantiation

Faceplates are very useful for common object controls due to their reusable nature. They also offer a method by which we can update multiple instances by modifying one library version. In Totally Integrated Automation Portal (TIA Portal), faceplates must be created at the Project library level and then instantiated in the project. This ensures the paradigm shown in Figure 11.1 is followed at all times.

TIA Portal V17 faceplates

In TIA Portal Version 17 (V17), there are two types of faceplates: one for Panels / WinCC Runtime Advanced and another for Unified Comfort Panel / WinCC Unified...