With the use of Node-RED, we can create a dashboard to display and interact with
data from our BRX PLC. In our previous video, we set up a workflow that brought in a JSON packet
from our BRX PLC. In this video, we will create a simple dashboard to display this data.
To create a dashboard first we must install the dashboard feature in Node-RED.
We do this by going here and selecting Manage Palette.
Click on the Install tab, type in dashboard, and then select to install.
Now you will have access to the dashboard nodes on the left.
In our BRX program, we packed these data points into our JSON message.
We will apply these points to the dashboard.
To unpack this JSON message we must first add a JSON parser node to the workflow.
First let’s add the name of the BRX PLC to our dashboard.
Grab a text node from the group of dashboard nodes and drag it into the workflow.
To get the name of our PLC, notice in the debug window here the name is Name.
So we just need to edit this value format to include the .name.
Select done, connect this node to the JSON parser and then deploy the new workflow.
Now open up a new browser window
and enter in the IP address of the Node-RED setup and then slash ui.
And now we see the name of the PLC being displayed dynamically.
Let’s go back into our workflow and add a graph to display the seconds. To use the seconds, first, we will need to
condition the seconds from the JSON packet to work with the gauge, so we'll add a change node.
We will take the payload message and the specific msg of payload.seconds.
Then set this to a topic that we will name System_Seconds.
Grab the Graph node from the dashboard nodes.
I will label the graph as BRX Seconds and then adjust the range to be from 0-60 seconds.
Connect the nodes, then select to deploy. If we go back to the dashboard, we see it updating dynamically.
Last, let’s add the run state of the PLC.
Add another text box. Label this as PLC in Run.
And then change the value format to use the CPU in Run Name.
Connect the nodes and deploy. There we have all of our data displayed in one dashboard.
One other little tip - if you want to rearrange the order of this data, select this button
and drag the items into the order you want to display.
Redeploy and it is just that quick and easy. You can make much more elaborate dashboards
with Node-RED but this will give you a jump start on creating the automation
tools to make the most of your designs. For more videos on the BRX PLC select here.
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