Sleepy Wombat

CX-Programmer improvement requests

166 posts in this topic

Just another quick tip.. to navigate to a coil super fast, simply highlight the contact and press the space bar... As regards to Address window yep that is the quick cross ref, you can sort the address window by mnumonic or step etc and simply highlighting the the desired location will jump you to that location too... Also about the comments changing without have to do an online edit, I aggree with you, a bit of a pain to an other wise seamless online editing function.

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I have also spoken to quite a few that do not realise you can chage the PV and SV of timers/counters without going into online programming mode. That is SOOOO handy. You can even change some values inside some functions without going to online programming mode but very few. Suck it and see. If you are only changing symbols and descriptions, go offline and change them. Them go online and download them without stopping the PLC. A bit more fiddly but works. Be very careful changing bit numbers offlin attacched to symbols though as CX-P will change them all the way through the program. The online/offline programs will then not match.

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Where did you find out this one? It's not in the keyboard mapping list....

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I actually took the time to read the Quick Start Guide... IMHO Omron's best ever manual..... Here's another I recently just discovered... press the "L" key... all of the rung comments are displayed in a pop up window.. click on a comment to navigate directly to that rung...

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Good idea, there are some useful tips in there even for the experienced users! The [N]ext and ack keys are also very useful to browse by contact/coil reference!!

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I have had the problem of compiling code with ST function blocks with floating points. In Belgium we have "," as the decimal separator and the Us has "." CXP doesn't save the code in a country independent file. So if you send a program to a colleque in the States, he can start replacing all floating point constants. Beegee

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One comment I get from AB guys is that they do not like the BCD value of the timers. I found that you can change timer/counter to binary. You have to use the binary timer but you can now load the timer with a binary value and compare value with binary number. Also for anyone who would need a 6553.5 second timer the set value can be 0 - 65535. Seems to only work on CS1, CJ1, and CP1's.

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When adding more than one PLC into a project, allow the visual location of the plc to be moved up and down on the project tree.

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Workaround: create a new project (easiest), and cut&paste the PLC's from the original project, starting with the one you want to be first up and working your way down.

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Correct - the older PLCs were all BCD based.

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Request...When manually building datalinks, after the framework is complete and the addresses are to be modified, the Datalink Component replys with a window called "Area Specify". In the window one can change the datalink address to what is desired, but you need to select area 1 or area 2. It would be handy to have both areas come up at the same time instead of having to click on one or the other. Edited by tstevic

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Are you referring to the CLK datalink editor or the Ethernet I/P datalink tool? Perhaps a screenshot will help...

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An "Update all FB invocations" would be a time saving function...

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RSI saver all the way! We're begging for that function like 2 years or something, but Omron in the Netherlands seems to think it's not that important. It is very important though, especially at those times when you have to update 360 instances manually.

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Nice to UDT and very importent function block that supporting them. Banker

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I would like to be able to draw the lines directly with the mouse.

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in the past weeks I have worked extensively with Programmer and Designer, and as such I had often to switch between the two looking after symbols names. When specifying the addresses for the various elements in Designer Symbol table, it is possible to copy/drag&drop from Programmer the usual manner, but it is still a manual operation and as such prone to mistakes. It would be better if Omron revamps the "CX-Server file for linked symbols" moving away from the old closed . cdm binary format to the common Excel-format file. I can recall only NTST (the software used to program the old NT touchscreens) used Server symbol file to get the addresses it needed, but I have not seen any other CX-One softwares using it. Keeping a central file, automatically generated and populated as program is written (as of now you have to manually specify for every symbol if you want to save it on the list) where all the symbols/addresses/data areas can be shared by all programs would bolster considerably CX-One, allowing for example automatic entry of symbols name from word processors or from external non-Omron programs such as electrical CADs, facilitating the generation of project documentation, and improving the workflow if as it happens in my case, more people are working on the same project at the same time. And speaking about working in team...i am starting to appreciate the usefulness of revision control software. Now we are using Mercurial, but this type of software lumps all the binary files such as cxp and thus ends eating a lot of mass memory since for even the slightest change, the full file need to be saved. It would not be bad if Omron could put some kind of revision control in the next versions of CX-One, this would allow for a more streamlined project creation and management, for instance allowing the rapid creation of a project with chosen features from the main full featured projects.

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Is there a tick box to make all I/O, bool's and variables global instead of clicking the make global button every time.......as I forget in haste from time to time

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For Simple plc's like(cp1e) also we need to make the functional blocks & subroutine's.

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dns resolution for fins adresses. i have a remote plc over the internet behind a cel based router and it would be nice to access it by name than hvving to find out the ip adress all the time and putting it in the network settings to remote program and monitor it all the time.

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To do that your device's names would have to be registered on an Internet-based name server. Just like websites. That has nothing to do with software, it's a network configuration thing...

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That is not really what I'm asking for if I could type in a web address into the Omron software instead of an IP address the dns could forward it to the correct dynamic IP with cellular networks the IP address can change multiple times a day making connection and monitoring a nightmare. all of my sites have a dns server to log in to the touch screens and operate them over the net it would be nice to do the same to program/ monitor from CX programmer. as a work around could I use the lmhosts file in windows to redirect a made up IP Address to a web page?

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might be silly but: one shot TXD and RXD commands or output coils ability to diffu or difd a compare function

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You can do all of this (with newer PLCs, CJ2, CP1, etc). To one shot RXD and TXD instructions (and many of the instructions) put an @ symbol in front of the instruction. @TXD for example. To one shot the CMP instruction or a symbol comparison instruction (=, >, < for example), use the UP (or DOWN to diff down) instruction prior to the comparison. Like this: To one shot an output coil, use the DIFU or DIFD instructions instead of a coil. These are DIFF UP and DIFF DOWN coils. However, you could just use a regular coil and then change individual contacts to Diff up or diff down. See the DIFU Instruction and the contact modification in the picture below: To change a regular contact to a differentiated contact, just double click on it, then you may have to hit the detail button if it is not already showing, then choose UP as shown below:

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