Industrial Dashboards

I am a mechanical engineer and I am absolutely new to Node Red and dashboards and I would like to know how to start and what programming languages do I need to learn to design a functional industrial dashboards. Sorry if I am asking in the wrong section.

Welcome to the forum -

You could start by looking at the documentation - docs

Also I recommend watching this playlist: Node-RED Essentials. The videos are done by the developers of node-red. They're nice & short and to the point.

Can you tell us more about what you mean by an industrial dashboard?

Hello Colin, well an industrial dashboard is something like my master's graduation project I made a dashboard that monitors and controls the factory shop floor and allows engineers to issue orders to the workers and monitor the production line. this includes the tools and the work piece. however all I could do was the frame of the dashboard (just looks but no data inside meaning not functional). I am new to programming too and it needed some programming to finish the project but I was out of my depth.

I can show you screen shots of how it looks if you want

What about the hardware it is to run on?

I wanted to use barcode scanners, for example I wanted to put barcodes on the work pieces and as the work piece moves around from one process to another, the dashboard can track the work piece. the same goes for the tools, I also made an alert option in case there is a tool or a work piece missing or we are low on stock.

I meant what hardware is the dashboard system to run on?


this dashboard is supposed to show and run on an screen tablet with the engineers.

Do you mean an Android tablet or what? If yes then what will the software interfacing with the production line be running on?

well that's the thing, this is as far as I was able to reach. I don't know which system or software to use and how to connect it. I am missing a lot like how to enter the data, what programming language I need to learn. to answer your questions, yes it will be an android tablet and code scanning devices. and in case I want to connect to my laptop what will I need to learn?

You won't be able to run the whole thing on a tablet. You will need something like a Pi or an industrial processor of some sort.

I think you have a lot of research to do, not only about node-red but also the hardware aspects, how to interface the production line to the system. In addition there may be wiring regulations to think about, does the computer you use need to be industrially hardened and so on.

great thank you, I will do more research on the topic.

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