Wonderware

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Thread Starter

Andrew Chiang

Can anybody tell me all the news about Wonderware ? I want to hear both the good story and the bad one also. Is the system really good for doing
data archiving/retrieving and data analysis for 200 points at 1 minute sampling time interval per point forever ?
 
It can actually do much more than that. I assume your talking about Industrial SQL Server.
I currently have one system logging 600 analog tags, at 10 sec. resolution. History is currently at about 8 GB on a 18 GB mirrored drive system, for over 2 years worth of history, all available for query.
 
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Anthony de la Rosa

I'm using. or rather, misusing AlarmSuite from LightHammer to log data in addition to Alarms at 3 second resolution using SQL 6.5 with a 47GB drive. The database grows at a rate of 200 megs per week.

anthony
 
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Anthony de la Rosa

my understanding is that the update time is around 100 ms as for the merits of wonderware and its update speed, it would really depend on the number of active topics among other things. In my case I'm still on NetDDE, and believe me I'm trying to extricate myself from that mess. I'm pretty much limited to 100-150 active topics and 1000 ms update.

> I am getting sucked into using Wonderware for a high speed project. While I
> do not doubt the capabilities of Wonderware, can anyone tell me it's true screen update speed.
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I am getting sucked into using Wonderware for a high speed project. While I do not doubt the capabilities of Wonderware, can anyone tell me it's true screen update speed.

I have a process that is composed of many steps. Each step can be as long as 16 to 20 seconds. We control a dP (Delta Pressure) via a existing control scheme that works. Our existing MMI is slow having a screen update time or 2 to 5 seconds at a minimum. Our requirements are for an update time of 0.1 to .5 seconds on a subset of the real I/O. The remainder I/O (several hundred) can be displayed more slowly.

Thanks for any input.
 
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George Robertson

Sorry, you can expect 1 to 2 seconds typically. It's largely a function of the total I/O for the drivers updating that display...

[email protected]
George G. Robertson, P.E.
Manager of Engineering
Saulsbury Engineering and Construction
 
I don't know about WonderWare. But, I would imagine any of the current HMI's should be capable of updating at 100 milliseconds. We use Citect, for example, which defaults to 250mSec, but we can effectively set that value much lower for individual pages. Of course, your IOServer also needs to get the data from your process connected device at least as quickly.

Mike Ryan
Aerojet Fine Chemicals
 
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George Robertson

I've never seen any real plant application of WW that updated faster than about 3/4 seconds.

[email protected]
George G. Robertson, P.E.
Manager of Engineering
Saulsbury Engineering and Construction
 
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Mike Schoonmaker

Rodney,

You should consider using OPC for this app. We had a similar situation at one time, where a customer wished to move 400 analog values (16 bits each) from our control engine into another company's SCADA package. Over NetDDE, this took 22 seconds. Once moved to OPC, it moved to ~15 milliseconds!

OPC is a very efficient transfer mechanism, as it only transfers (as a block of data) the items that have changed since the last update, with the OPC Server "packing" the data at it's end, and the OPC Client (typically the SCADA product) "unpacking" the data at the other end. If you wish to learn more about OPC, I would suggest you look to the following links:

http://www.opcfoundation.org
http://www.opc.dial.pipex.com/

One last comment... Wonderware DOES offer a "OPC Connection", but we understand that they use a "OPC to NetDDE bridge", as opposed to a native
OPC implementation.

Mike Schoonmaker
Think & Do Software, Inc.
(734) 205-5108
(800) PC-CNTRL ext. 108
[email protected]
http://www.thinkndo.com
 
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George Robertson

My comment regarding update times was with respect to actually seeing a number change on a complex graphic. As far as loop control with something like InControl, the communications network speed is the limit. If the data can be obtained in 1/10 second (which it typically cannot) the loop can be processed that quickly.

[email protected]
George G. Robertson, P.E.
Manager of Engineering
Saulsbury Engineering and Construction
 
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Leighton Toews

Wonderware update time is of course influenced by how quickly you can acquire the onformation from the PLC. The screen update time is largely
dependant on the power of the PC you are running it on. Your limiting factor may be the poll speed which you set in the wonderware dde server. I think the quickest you can set is around 250ms, but i may be in error.

Leighton Toews
Automation Technologist
Deltech Industries Inc.
http://www.deltech.ca
 
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Mike Boudreaux

I was told by a Wonderware rep. that their OPC Connection will run faster than your typical NetDDE as long as you run your OPC Server on the same computer as the NetDDE server (all of the OPC-to-NetDDE conversion is on the same PC). That way the network packets are sent using the faster OPC rather than the slower NetDDE.

Does anyone have any experience with this?

Mike Boudreaux
http://mike.boudreaux.net
 
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Anthony de la Rosa

and what does it take to convert over from NetDDE to OPC? Is there some rewriting involved?

anthony
 
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Kevin Totherow

> I am getting sucked into using Wonderware for a high speed project. While I do not doubt the capabilities of Wonderware, can anyone tell me it's true screen update speed.

> I have a process that is composed of many steps. Each step can be as long as 16 to 20 seconds. We control a dP (Delta Pressure) via a existing control scheme that works. Our existing MMI is slow having a screen update time or 2 to 5 seconds at a minimum. Our requirements are for an update time of 0.1 to .5 seconds on a subset of the real I/O. The remainder I/O (several hundred) can be displayed more slowly.

>
Short answer is with others that mentioned that the issue is not typically how fast the screen can update but how fast the changed data can get reported to the HMI.

Since you mention dP, I understand that your control is an analog (Continuous) control. To get .1 sec updates you will need to start at the process. Most PID algorithms are not going to process at 100 ms because most dP transmitters will be that slow or slower to send a real signal to the controller. (Your process may be special) If your controller processes faster than the transmitter your control is bad. If you update the screen faster than the controller sends out new data you accomplish nothing except loading. If you need that fast - You can build a topic for the point you want fastest and one for the other points.

Start at the begining and Wonderware will do its part. Many of the Wonderware I/O servers are used by PID tuning software to collect very fast data.

Side note:The HMI is usually for operator actions. It is very disconcerting for an operator to start a device and have it take too long to indicate started but .1 second updates to an HMI? If I had an action that needed .1 sec attention I would build that function into the controller.

I installed InTouch over a system of DCS and AB PLCs that has 13,000 analog and discrete I/O. The AB PLC point changes are virtually instant. The DCS point updates vary with controller scans on the DCS highway but are generally about 1 to 2 sec. and InTouch always beat the old DCS consoles.

Hope this helps.
 
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Wonderwares Industrial SQL product is a great fit for data storage and retrieval for many systems at once. Running on top of Microsoft SQL Server is a excellent combination of low cost and high quality. I use it to collect thousands of points per minute with no difficulty.
 
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