Venus 7000: How to do File RTD

Step 1- Creating a Text File

1. For this exercise we are going to use File RTD to update out of town scores at a football game. Open Notepad by clicking on the Start | Programs | Accessories |Notepad.
2. On the first line of Notepad enter in the first team name. On the second line enter in the first team score
3. On the third line of Notepad enter in the second team name. On the fourth line enter in second team score.
4. Follow steps 3 - 8 for all remaining teams.
5. Click on File | Save. Name the file Teamscores.txt (be sure and save the file as a .txt file). Save the file to the D:/V7000/RTD directory. Close Notepad.

Step 2- Configuring V7000

1. From the V7000 Shell click on the Configure button. The System Configuration window will open.
2. Click on the RTD Inputs tab, select Input 10 if it is available. Click on the Edit Input button. 
3. Configure the Edit RTD Input window to look like the Edit RTD Input sample window to the right.                                                  
4. Click OK, click OK again to exit System Configuration. When  prompted to Restart the Sign Service, click Yes, Yes and Yes. In order for the File RTD settings to take place this must be done. Remember that the display will blank when the sign service restarts. The sign service should stop and then immediately start up again.

Step 3- Creating a Real Time Data (RTD) Frame in 7000

1. Open the Sequence Designer. From the V7000 Shell, clicking on the Edit button.
2. Go to the Menu bar, click on File, New. The Select File window will open. Click on the plus sign next to 96 x 224, or the sign you would like to work with. Double click on the Default folder. Name the file "Out of Town Scores" , and click OK.
3. Go back to the Menu bar, click on Frame | Insert | Data Frame. The Frame Properties window will open.
4. Click on the Data Field Parameters tab. Under Field Types, click on the radio button next to RTD. Under RTD Field, click on the drop down box next to Input and choose Input 10, or the input that was configured earlier.
5. For Field 1, which will contain the information for the first team name, configure the Data Field Parameters tab to look like Figure 1. As you enter fields you can use your cursor to place them in the correct location on the screen.
   
6. For Field 2, which will contain information for the first team score, under Field, click on the up arrow or type 2. Under RTD Field, change Item # to 26 and Length to 2. The Item # is going to increase in increments of 25. The reason for this is that in step 3 of Configuring V7000 we set the line length to 25. If we had set that to 30, the Item # would increase by increments of 30.
7. For Field 3, which will contain the information for the second team name, under Field, click on the up arrow or type 3. Under RTD Field, change Item # to 51 and Length to 25.
8. For Field 4, which will contain information for the second team score, under Field, click on the up arrow or type 4. Under RTD Field, change Item # to 76 and Length to 2.
9. For Field 5, which will contain information for the third team name, under Field, click on the up arrow or type 5. Under RTD Field, change Item # to 101 and Length to 25.
10. For Field 6, which will contain information for the third team score, under Field, click on the up arrow or type 6. Under RTD Field, change Item # to 126 and Length to 2.
11. For Field 7, which will contain information for the fourth team name, under Field, click on the up arrow or type 7. Under RTD Field, change Item # to 151 and Length to 25.
12. For Field 8, which will contain information for the fourth team score, under Field, click on the up arrow or type 8. Under RTD Field, change Item # to 176 and Length to 2. If you have more scores you would like to display, continue this process.
13. Once you have inserted the number of fields you need, click on OK to close the Frame Properties window.

1.  Click on the Preview button . Click on the Stop button .
2. Save and close the sequence.

Step 4- Troubleshooting File RTD

1. To check that the item numbers are accurate, go to the V7000 Shell program and select Diagnostics. In the Diagnostics window, click on the RTD tab. Click on the down arrow under Input and choose the input that has been configured, for this example choose Input 10 is the correct input. In the lower window, all the data coming through from the file should be visible.
2. Check to make sure the first blank frame has been deleted.
3. Preview the frame at any time to check and see that the data is coming through correctly.
4. Occasionally, some garbage data (information not contained in the .txt file you created) may appear on a  frame. To help with this, be sure to space through all 25 spaces on each line using the space bar - this should alleviate the problem of garbage data.
5. If the data is coming through on the Diagnostics tab but not in the Preview window check the text color of the RTD fields, as the text color may have defaulted to black.