Hello all,

I am concerned about a proper and logical sequence of the sectors for "Warning" and "Error" states in a lookup gauge. The use case is to show the battery voltage drop out of a kind of UPS for a spcific device when it is w/o mains supply. The figures of the voltage is received via a sensor and a PS script and the channel uses the lookup feature to give meaningful texts to the user. This all works pretty fine. But the gauge sorts both the Warning sectors and the Error sectors in a kind of counter clockwise (CCW) order, so the pointer jumps from top (OK) to bottom, climbing through the Warning sectors CCW back to nearly the top, and jumps then into the Error sectors for the next counter clock wise turn.

The lookup file that I have created is like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <ValueLookup id="Example_LookupRemainingTime" desiredValue="530" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="PaeValueLookup.xsd"> <Lookups> <Range state="OK" from="530" to="560">Mains supply; OK</Range> <Range state="Warning" from="490" to="529">Battery powered; remaining approx. 80 Min.</Range> <Range state="Warning" from="480" to="489">Battery powered; remaining approx. 50 Min.</Range> <Range state="Warning" from="470" to="479">Battery powered; remaining approx. 20 Min.</Range> <Range state="Error" from="460" to="469">Battery powered; remaining approx. 10 Min.</Range> <Range state="Error" from="450" to="459">Danger for Battery loss; remaining approx. 8 Min.</Range> <Range state="Error" from="440" to="449">Danger for Battery loss; remaining approx. 5 Min.</Range> <Range state="Error" from="430" to="439">Danger for Battery loss; remaining approx. 3 Min.</Range> <Range state="Error" from="0" to="429">Danger of Battery loss</Range> </Lookups> </ValueLookup>

which I think presents the logical sequence order through the different states pretty clearly, so I am glad for any hint to bring the sectors of the gauge into the same order. Thanks a lot and greetings.


Article Comments

Hello,my understanding is that the sensor state works fine based on the received value but the problem is the states on the gauge that are not showing the right order? if the device is providing these numeric values, isn't it better to use Limits on the channel instead of lookups? Or you need the lookups to provide the required description? Can you share a screenshot of the channel?


Mar, 2022 - Permalink

Is it possible to add a screenshot of the gauges? Or send us an email at support@paessler.com with all the information as possible


Mar, 2022 - Permalink

Hello again, I like to present a fixing to my issue here as well. The use case that I tried to implement is a kind of countdown timer thus the higher the received figure the lesser is an urgent need to react. The gauge shown by the lookup feature shows sectors with colour indication in a suitable manner from green to red but the figures behind must be sorted ever increasingly while following in the same direction as the colours indicate. But that was in contradiction to my intended application where the figures decease with the countdown passing by. Thus, the fixing is to invert the figures to be received by a factor of (-1) from plus to minus. This leads to ever increasing values during the countdown and the gauge works pretty well like a real one. This is not a real hack but it satisfies my needs. Here is my example for the fixing:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <ValueLookup id="BCU-Batt_PowerStatus-LookupRemTime-neg" desiredValue="-530" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="PaeValueLookup.xsd"> <Lookups> <Range state="OK" from="-560" to="-530">Mains Power OK</Range> <Range state="OK" from="-529" to="-490">Batt. 80Min. left</Range> <Range state="Warning" from="-489" to="-480">Batt. 50Min. left</Range> <Range state="Warning" from="-479" to="-470">Batt. 25Min. left</Range> <Range state="Warning" from="-469" to="-460">Batt. 10Min. left</Range> <Range state="Error" from="-459" to="-440">Batt. loss in 5Min.</Range> <Range state="Error" from="-439" to="-430">Batt. loss in 3Min.</Range> <Range state="Error" from="-429" to="0">Batt. lost</Range> </Lookups> </ValueLookup>

I suggest for future updates to implement a kind of “turning direction flag” into the OVL file for the purpose to indicate whether the sequence order of the sectors shall follow increasing (e.g. by a plus sign “+”) or decreasing (e.g. by a minus sign “-”) figures. This will be helpful in cases where the received values can’t be inverted by reasons what so ever or where the minus sign must be avoided in the display. Hope this will help your needs as well. Best greetings


Apr, 2022 - Permalink