BITS N BYTES

Sysmac Studio Improvement Request

232 posts in this topic

On 7/25/2016 at 1:03 AM, twstevic said:

I have found several issues I don't care for in Sysmac Studio. The most annoying for me is the lack of free form ladder diagram creation. I haven't had to plan out rungs in advance this much since I was programming with mnemonics.

Not too sure what you mean by this?

It is possible to add contacts etc. without adding an address until later. Is that what you mean?

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18 hours ago, Andy_P said:

Not too sure what you mean by this?

It is possible to add contacts etc. without adding an address until later. Is that what you mean?

Also confused by what you mean by FREE FORM LADDER.

SYSMAC Studio allows very flexible programming techniques.

The ability to mix Conventional Ladder and Structured Text in the same POU's is incredibly flexible and powerful.

 

:dance:

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If you select the Constant attribute for a variable, and then deselect it, the software seems to not know the constant attribute was removed. I (accidently) selected the Constant attribute for a 1000 element array. After a rebuild, the error 'No value can be written to a variable with the constant attribute' showed up 200+ times. I deselected the check box and rebuilt the program. The same error repeated. The only way I could fix this was to recreate a new array with a different name then delete the original. I was lucky to have only used a few hundred bits in the original. This is a BUG and needs to be fixed. 

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To Andy_P. No, that is not what I mean. In CX programmer you can add horizontal lines '_' and vertical lines '|' where ever you like. you can put contacts anywhere you like and then connect them at will. As long as a valid ladder diagram results, the software is happy.

In the attached file, the first rung can not be made into the second rung by simply adding the new horizontal line. You have to insert a parallel then drag contacts the make the rung you want. To many steps.

Capture.JPG

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To Bits and Bytes.

This is free form ladder.

Capture2.JPG

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Never seen the issue you mentioned with constants, and I've been using Sysmac Studio since 1.06.  What version are you using?

Yes, you cannot freeform hand draw your ladder in the same ways.  But it seems to me that I can drag and drop a line to make the first rung the second with no problems.  Highlight the line between the contacts and click and drag down to the line between the bottom contacts.  Worked fine for me.

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I have version 1.15. If you have time, I would be interested if other versions have this bug also. Make a boolean array, make some of the bits outputs of a rung, turn on the constant attribute. Build the program, remove the constant attribute and rebuild.

 

True, I can still make any kind of ladder rung I desire, but making complex rungs takes a lot more thought and planning. Sysmac Studio is to close to RSLogix and too far from CX Programmer.

 

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Actually the problem isn't that it's too far from CX-Programmer.  It'n not meant to be anything like CX-Programmer.  CX-Programmer was Omron's software for writing Omron ladder logic.  Sysmac Studio follows the IEC directives for ladder logic and structured text.  The fact that it is more like RS Logix is because Rockwell also follows the IEC directives in RS Logix 5000. 

All vendors are moving to IEC compliant programming, and there are numerous reasons this is good, as have been discussed before.  It's the standardized method that will help programmers more easily port their skills between vendors and minimize learning curve.  And it's not going away...

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I do not think IEC 61131 has any directives about how the ladder editor works. I could be wrong... 

Using a touch pad to drag and drop on a laptop (while balancing it on your leg) when working in a plant is not my idea of efficiency. Perhaps it is because I am old, but programming with hot keys, or keyboard shortcuts is how I normally work. I still type commands in Autocad.

I know 61131 is not going away. Reasons it is 'good' are debatable. The original goal to make software that can be written once and run on any platform will only make everything equally stupid (IMHO). 

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I've been on site and done the same balancing act.  I also primarily write code using keyboard shortcuts.  Almost all keyboard shortcuts are the same in SS that they were in CXP, with the exception of the line drawing tools.  And there are some special functions for contact and coil which can only be accessed via right click.

 

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Some new dislikes:

(cntl)+F brings up the search panel. After you type what you want to search for, you need to click on one of the search buttons. EVERYONE else allows you to type the term you are looking for and press enter to find the next instance of the search term.

The structured text line "TempString3_1:=GetDayOfWeek(_CurrentTime);" returns a value of _MON, _TUE, etc. The enumerated data of TempString3_1 can not be elegantly converted to a string value if you want to display the day of week on an HMI.

 

If you have a variable JUNK as a STRING[4], if you want to modify the value on a watch tab, the maximum number of characters that can be entered is 3, not 4.

 

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It would be very helpful to be able to select a range of tags and change the Network Publish attribute all at once. 

 

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I've personally found that making changes to many variables at once or making ranges is much easier done in Excel.  I agree there should be a way in Studio to bulk change things like retain, constant, and network publish.  So +1 me on that suggestion.

What I do is copy them to Excel, change one, copy that change to a range, and then copy the variables back to SS.

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In a watch window, when adding a tag, the pick list opens on top of the tags already registered. Would be helpful if the pick list could be detached and allowed to float.

When running in the simulator, if you have a boolean tag registered, say Input_00, then modify the value to true or false, then change the tag, say Input_01, the modify button retains the state of the previous tag. For example, if I modify Input_00 to be TRUE, the I change the tag to Input_01, the TRUE button stays green, but the actual value of Input_01 is not true.

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When running the simulator, if there is a variable, STR1 of type string[4], the modify field in the watch window will only allow 3 digits to be entered.

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On 8/15/2016 at 7:19 AM, twstevic said:

When running the simulator, if there is a variable, STR1 of type string[4], the modify field in the watch window will only allow 3 digits to be entered.

Because a string must have a terminator character too.

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Seriously, when can we expect to see the ability to force non IO bits?

Not having this is a huge PITA when testing / commissioning a system.

Constantly having to add and remove test bits is getting very old!

 

 

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Crossbow - The software could hide this requirement. A string of 'ABCD' has a length of 4. Having to declare it with a length of 5 is a PITA.

Andy_P. - Yes! Yes! Yes!

 

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It's can't hide it, because it's a requirement to determine the length of the storage in the PLC.  No PLC 'hides' it.

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Crossbow, I understand that the CPU needs the null character to separate one string from another string in memory, but the programming software can certainly hide the requirement that makes you declare a STRING[5] for four characters. Or is that another silly requirement from IEC 61131? I have never needed to declare a string length larger than the actual number of characters used in any other programming language that I can recall. Is this really common in other PLC brands? I need to get out more.

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I used to use quite a bit of Mitsubishi, and the terminator does count in the length of the string.  Not real sure on many of the others, don't have to work with string data too often anymore.

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It does not appear possible to declare a new variable (with its type and comment) on the fly when doing ST programming.

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When you type something in ST it does not recognize, a blue box shows up under it.  You mouse over that box and click, it will make a local variable.  Right click on one, and an option exists to generate all at once.

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Crossbow, that does not happen in the version I am running. V1.15

Is an update available or is that some option?

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7 hours ago, Crossbow said:

When you type something in ST it does not recognize, a blue box shows up under it.  You mouse over that box and click, it will make a local variable.  Right click on one, and an option exists to generate all at once.

 

I can confirm that this works for me too. I am currently using V1.16.

 

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