PLC Steps – Your Guide to Industrial Automation

In Part 1, we focused on the PLC side and the logic required to control an ON/OFF signal.
In this second part, we will focus on the SCADA level, specifically on how to create and configure ON/OFF buttons in WinCC 7.5 using the Graphics Designer.

1. Preparing the WinCC Screen

1. Open your project in WinCC Explorer.
2. Go to Graphics Designer and open the required screen with a double click (in this example, mainScreen.pdl).
3. Select the background of the screen, go to Properties, and double-click on Background Color. Choose the desired background color (in this example, black).
4. If the background color does not change:
   • Go to Properties → Effect
   • Set Global Color Scheme to No
5. From the Elements panel on the right side, drag and drop a Button onto the screen.

WinCC Explorer – Graphics Designer – mainScreen.pdl

background of the screen

Button’s Properties

2. Adding Dynamic Behavior to the Button

1. Select the Button → Properties → Effects Set Global Color Scheme to No.
2. Still in Properties, set:
   • Background Color: Blue
   • Font Color: White
3. Right-click on the lamp icon next to Background Color and select “Dynamic Dialog…”.
4. In the Dynamic Dialog:
   • Enter the Tag Name inside single quotes ('TagName')
   • Select the variable type (Boolean in this example)
5. Define the dynamic colors:
   • Yes (1) → Green
   • No (0) → Blue
6. Go to Trigger:
   • Event → Event Tag
   • Enter the same Tag Name
   • Select Standard Cycle 500 ms
7. This configuration allows the button color to change dynamically based on the PLC tag value.
   

Global Color Scheme Disabled

Button on main screen

Dynamization of Properties

Dynamic Dialog

Trigger Menu – Trigger Tag

3. Defining the Button Action (ON Button)

1. Select the Button and go to the Events category.
2. Choose
   • Mouse → Press Left
   • Right-click and select Direct Connection
3. Set:
   • Constant → 1
   • Tag → "on" This means that when the button is pressed, the PLC tag on is set to logic 1.

Button’s Events Tab

Direct Connection Menu

4. Creating the OFF Button

1. Copy / Paste the ON button.
2. Repeat exactly the same steps as above.
3. The only difference:
   • Use the Tag "off"
   • Set the Constant accordingly (typically 1 for the OFF command, depending on PLC logic).

Copy and paste Button On and create Button Off

5. Testing in Runtime

1. Save the screen.
2. From WinCC Explorer, start the Runtime.
3. Press the ON and OFF buttons.
4. Verify that:
   • The PLC tags change correctly
   • The button colors update dynamically
   • The system behaves as expected

Start Runtime

Testing Buttons Function

Conclusion

With these steps, we successfully created dynamic ON/OFF control buttons in WinCC 7.5, connected them to PLC tags, and verified their behavior in Runtime.

This approach provides a clear and user-friendly way to control PLC signals directly from the SCADA system.

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