How are UDT's counted?

[CanaanP 1]

A coworker of mine was working on a project in RS View32 running on a touch screen PC. He had written a program in RSL5000 to control 4 VFDs in a panel. He had come to a point where the tag database exceeded what was allowed by the license of RS View32. He ended up having to upgrade their license to a larger one to accommodate the tag database. Anyway, I had learned through my very limited experience with 5000, about UDTs. If I created a UDT with say 10 items in it. Then I create an array with 10 iterations of that UDT. Does that mean I'm using 100 tags, or 10? Is there a quick and dirty way to find out how many tags I'm actually using while I'm in 5000? Thanks in advance for the advice :)

[b_carlton 61]

Creating a tag in RSLogix5000 doesn't mean you automatically have to use it in the display. It's the use in the display which is maxing out your license. And yes - that would be 100 items since the entire UDT is not one displayable unit.

[BobLfoot 301]

CannanP - not super experienced with the RSview but it has some limittions when it comes to UDT access. Hopefully the more experienced RSview users can elaborate on UDT's and RSView. About counting tags. - Both RSlogix and Rsview tag dayabases export as csv. Once there OpenOfficeCalc or Excel will let you run a count(range) formula on the tagname list. Maybe not quick the first time, but definitely easy after a time or two of doing it.

[CanaanP 1]

Ok, thanks b_carlton, that makes sense but not sure how we got into the problem with the license to begin with if it's only counting the ones in use. Now by usage, we are talking about a tag that's linked to a button, or something that gets a value directly written into it, things like that right? So, when I'm in my rsview32 project, and I import the tag database, those are not considered as being used until I link them up with something? @BobLfoot, the first attempt I made at trying to count tags from within 5000 was to export tag database to csv file. In my program I have UDT called MS. It has about 10 elements, including a couple of timers. I have an array of 22 MS's and in the csv file it only showed MS as one tag. Yet, when you import into rsview32 or factorytalk view, it shows all the sub elements of that UDT. That's why I was confused about usage. Thanks for the responses though guys, BTW, is there any RA documentation that can spell this all out for me? This way I can have something to back up what I'm saying to the coworkers. Thanks again.

[lostcontrol 23]

I don't know RsView at all, but I would think that it is based on tags in database, not tags in use.

[b_carlton 61]

I agree. Trim the database to the ones you really need. Though that's probably a headache.

[Eddie Willers 2]

In RSView32, the tag count limit is on Device Tags in the RSView32 Tag Database. You don't need to export them to count them; from the Tag Database editor, select Help and click "Tag Statistics". If you import an RSLogix 5000 tag database, you are very likely going to end up with a lot of tags in the RSView32 tag database that you don't intend to use. This includes a lot of sub-elements of UDTs and module-defined tags. A Tag does not have to be used on a display to count against the Tag Database licensed limits. RA Knowledgebase Answer ID # 43741 and # 7487 have some useful information about tag counts and a utility to delete unused tags from the RSView32 database.

[CanaanP 1]

Thanks Eddie, that 7487 answer seems to be what I'm looking for. I guess it's kind of a touchy subject though because the notes say that the Project Documentor cannot tell if the tags are used for VBA, which we do quite a bit of. However, it's a new tool to me, and I'll definitely consider it when doing these projects. Thanks again.