Introducing Flintium! An open source library of Ignition faceplates

I’ve been working on this library for a while now, and just made the repository public. Originally based on the FactoryPacks project from the Ignition Exchange. Once Flintium is stable, a version will be posted to the Exchange, but for now, feel free to try out the working version on Github.

The project needs input from this community! For information on contributing, please see the Contributing Wiki page. Anyone is welcome to post comments, feature requests, and report bugs on the issues page.

Flintium is a faceplate library, as well as an experiment in open-source Ignition collaboration using Git/Github. I’d like it to be a resource for Ignition users who want to start using Git for their projects. Feel free to ask Git & Ignition related questions, and use the tools included in Flintium’s repository to help with your project’s version control. Suggestions to help improve Flintium’s workflow are appreciated as well.

Enjoy!

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Very cool project and idea, thanks for sharing. We love seeing this sort of collaborative effort in the Ignition community!

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This is a great idea! Excited to try this out and appreciate your efforts to bring this to the community and provide a Wiki.

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Thanks Benjamin, I’d love to hear your thoughts once you try it out!

Thank you for sharing. That is what makes our community so great!

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Hi Jospeh.Burns,

First of all, nice job done with the Library, Looks Great!.

I have Tried to Play Around with This Flintum Library, as I Have a Customer which Wants Ignition, but I’m coming from PlantPAX Based system normally, and i Want the Same Functionality and Look, So i Came Across this Library. I have Succesfully got this up running and everything.

The Issue is:
Have Any of you Guys had Problems With Communication with Multiple AOI with this Library?
I Seems like the Gateway is Choking?

i Have Around 550.xxx Tags Linked to the PLC, And it seems like the Gateway is Choking if we Implement more than 10. The Response Times is somehow between 30 sec - 1 Minute.
If i Only have 10 motors, everything is good.

CIP Connection Sizes is set to 4002. and Max Memory is set to 4096.

Has anyone had a Workaround of how to Fix this problem, or has gone another way?
i’m A bit Curios if this Library only works with Small Prcoess Plants?

Kind Regards

Reading directly from AOIs is not efficient. See this thread for more info.

On top of what @JordanCClark stated, you should also created tag groups. For example, the “Cfg” tags don’t need a fast rate, something like 5-10 seconds is more reasonable.

I had issues with AOIs as you described, but not at the small quantity you have. I agree that you should move towards UDTs, but I also wonder if there isn’t something else going on in your setup.

Not sure what you mean when you say 550.xxx? Is that a european comma? e.g. 550000 tags? or am i misinterpreting? Cause that's a buttload of tags! I wouldn't be at all surprised though being BloatPAX....

As @nminchin said, I'm not sure exactly what you mean by 550.xxx. If you mean 550,000 and by max memory you mean the Max Java Heap Size. I'm curious what the rest of the gateway set up is.

How much memory does the server actually have available and are there any other applications running on the server?

Mabye i was to quick Writing, but yeah, I Mean 550,000 Tags for an Example (Half a Million of tags) after Importing My Program Tags into Ignition.

After that, using the Flintum Library etc. is just Chokes the Gateway and response time is 30 sec-60sec.
By Now i’m Pretty sure it has something to do with the Logix Gateway Ignition is using or has, Compared to RSLinx that i’m Familiar with. It Could be the Optimized Communication Rockwell do, that Ignition cant ? Any Thoughts on that?

Hi,

Is this Picture below Helpful for you?
Cpu is at 5-10 %, sometimes Peeks to 25%
But my Memory Usage is Constantly High.

How many devices for 550,000 tags? You mentioned 10 motors it’s fine. How many tags for 10 motors? I liked the idea of PlantPax but it’s way too much bloat, I took what they had and stripped it down and then used UDTs.

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Somewhat.

You didn’t answer the other questions.

How much memory (not allocated memory but total memory) is available on the server?
Are there any other applications running on the server?

When you say you imported the tags, do you mean you grabbed all tags, or you actually have 500K tags you will need for your application?

Also what’s the load factor of your plc in the igntion gateway status under devices?

At This Moment 16Gb Of Memory is Available for the Server. Also Possible to Turn this up if you think that Could Help. But didnt See Any Changes, Going From 8 to 16.
And no other Application is Running, Except Studio 5000 for PLC Development.

I have made a VBA Code, that Creates all my Tags from my PLC (P_Motor, P_ValveSO, P_ValveC, Etc) Into a Json File after playing around with Flinktum and made it work. So this I can Import, and i also have connection for all Motors Etc when its done, but the Gateway Gets Choked,.

So Yes, I Will need those 500.000 Tags, as this is needed to get the FULL Functionality, that the PlantPAX has and FLintum :slight_smile:

550,000 OPC tags will require a well-spec’d gateway and an incredible amount of patience on your part because there is no ControlLogix model that exists that would be able to serve those up via explicit messaging in any reasonable time.

A look at the diagnostics page (response times and overload) should clue you in.

Are you grabbing EVERY tag in the AOIs?

Anything Between 10-25 %

Note that i’m using, or the Plant has a Total of:
2 x L81ES - Rev 32 Firmware
2 x L82ES - Rev 32 Firmware
1 x L83ES - Rev 32 Firmware

Seems fairly small, to be honest. A customer of ours has 70+ PLCs and only have 350k Ignition tags, but they’re not using BloatPAX. We have issues with reading more than 15k tags from PLCs (a few are 81’s) with load factors above 100% reading AOI tags.