Chris Elston

Are you guys using a translater website or do both of you know spanish? If you have link, can you post that? I've been trying to type to spanish engineers but can't type their lingo.

Veger, To answer your orginal question. What you have there should work if you want to use a FIFO LOAD. Using a bit to load as you have posted in your example. I see nothing wrong with your thinking. And your example code you have posted makes good sense and should work just fine for what you are tracking. (The one bit either on or off in the FIFO for the parts traveling...) But just as 93ltl said, becareful about using FIFO on a conveyors. If you have ANY operators around they could remove a product and throw your whole FIFO out of wack. I've seen this happen a few times. Even my original reply using a BIT SHIFT could be thrown out of wack if a product is removed. Which is simpler than a FIFO LOAD for what you are tracking, could be the same problem. I think it's great the you want to try new instructions to track your product. That's the only way to learn and understand how to use the code, it learn by example or learn by doing. Eject      Bad                                                   B9:0/0 ---| |-----| |----(OSR)--------------------------------------------(L)--- *Latch the BIT you want to shift to indicate a failure                                                 Make Photo and unload Photo                           ---| |--------------------------------------------------|File =#B11:0 |control = R6:0 |Bit Address = B9:0/0 |Length = 1 *Whatever condition advances the next part, you shift the condition of B9:0/0 into B:11/0 Make Photo and unload Photo                                                                  B9:0/0 ---|/|----(OSR)----------------------------------------------------(U)--- *Unlatch the condition of BIt shift after you moved tracking bit                                              Photo                                                        Bad Part                                                 B11:0/10 ---| |---------------------------------------------| |-------------( )-----                                              |                                              |                                              |                 Good Part                                                 B11:0/10                                               ----|/|-------------( )----- *Start reading the 10th bit of the B11:0 file to watch the status of the TEN PRODUCT on the conveyor

I am not too hip on Fifo Load and Fifo Unload, but I have used alot of BIT SHIFTs. They work pretty good. Can you write the code using a bit shift? I could explain how I use bit shifts if you need me too. Let me know.

Jay, Yeah I know. He has a nice website for Omron and Siemans information! I use Google translator to read his site. (Thanks to my wife for telling me about this kewl feature). It takes a little bit to chew on it and show it in english, but I think you'll see it's pretty kewl. Also google hacks up the site pretty bad, but if you are really wanting to read something, you'll be able to make it out. http://translate.google.com/transla....&u=http :D

Thanks for the detailed reply Ken. I don't have an analog or "Trigger" events on device net, so I am going to give it a run for the money. I understand what you mean about 5 nodes not amounting to much traffic. And 1 sec to know that we lost the heart beat on a slave device is not that critical on this project, but valuable information and pointers should I require to have a slave device that can't stand 1 sec of comms loss from the scanner. Again thanks for your "AB" insight and wisdom.

I am getting ready to write some new code for a device net project I've got going. Here is what I got: AB Device NET Scanner Numatics 2002/2004 series Com Modules (5 NODES) with about 100 I/O each. Numatics says that they support all configuration of device net. In the past, I've only used POLLED. I've come to wonder if CHANGE OF STATE is better, seems like it would not tie up the network traffic so much. Has anyone got any words of wizdom configuring my device net for CHANGE OF STATE vs POLLED, like I always have before? In past, most device net capable devices that I have used, for example some SMC valve stacks, ONLY support POLLED, so I was forced to use POLLED configuration. Using Numatics 2002/2004 series com modules opens up a new door to try CHANGE OF STATE configuration. My device net system is running a digital I/O layout with a bunch of air driven valves for automation. Just mainly watching for an input, then turn on an output. Thanks for your comments regarding CHANGE OF STATE vs POLLED.

Rap- So how much is the software to program PLC Direct? It is as easy to use a RS Logix? Do they require a yearly fee? I favor PLC's that have easy software to use. Just wondering.

:D  Holly COW! That's great!

It seems like it could be very simple. No different that using a bar code reader. I have seen swipe card readers that are RS-232. So you can just read the ASCII strings that come from the swipe card. Never done it before, but seems possible. If you can find an RS-232 swipe reader, I don't see any problems. Patch that baby in the front port of the 5/03 and give those ASCII read commands a run for their money in your ladder.

Tell you what happened to me... I started going to a Purdue campus extension here in Indiana for a EE program. But they did not cover any PLCs or robotics course, only circuit level design jargon. But I learned basic electronics, and a programming language so I understood the basics of programming in general. I think the thing that really applied is when we learned the 7400 family of chips. All the AND, NOT, an OR logic gates you could make using the 7400 TTL logic chips?. Then I looked around and found that ITT had an Automation Manufacturing Engineering Bachelor degree. I would never wish this upon anyone else, because of the NON credit transfer to other colleges, and the cost to go was outrageous, but the last part of the year was spent with Allen Bradley PLC?s and learning the IRB 1400 ABB robot. The school owed a brand new IRB 1400. So I switched schools and earned my bachelors at ITT in Automation Manufacturing Engineering. My work place accepted my Bachelor Degree from ITT like I had finished with a Bachelor Degree from Purdue. They didn?t seem to mind. Some will say that a Bachelor from ITT is not as good as a Bachelor from Purdue, but I learned more about the field that I wanted to learn about at ITT than I would have ever done so at Purdue. The courses at ITT did not cover any panel views or SCADA I you are going to have to know this stuff to get the job done at your work, then make the place you work fork over the bill to go to these MINI seminars as I would call it to learn any panel view or SCADA like RS VIEW 32 classes. Our Allen Bradley rep does a great job coming around offering classes at their location. Nominal costs are around $800 per class and generally last 3-4 days. Most of the time, my place of employment has sprung for these seminars, or you just become a ?WING IT? type guy?Like the rest of us. You never know what you are doing, until you try. Now on the FLIP SIDE, I have a good (younger) friend who said that Purdue now offers more classes in PLC and Automation that they ever have before, which when I went, was ZERO CLASSES, so that might mean they offer two or three classes. My friend said he learned how to program PLC?s and learn DDE, and did a small RS VIEW 32 project in his class, which I was impressed with that once he told me. So if you live close to Purdue, check there on the automation classes they offer. That is my advise.

RSchuiling, Yeah, I got LINUX on the brain sorry about that.   I try not to mention that to keep an unbiased opinion type environment. Kim, You rock! Thanks for the excellent inside on OPC and the great links your provided. This is something I need to check into, (OPC). You've been a great asset to MrPLC.com. I hope you stick around awhile.

Is it possible that you could post a sample VB code that shows OPC to PLC? Does this require RS LINUX full version to run OPC? :D

Ok when I started doing this PLC programming and automation bit, my first PLC was an Allen Bradley brick SLC500 with fixed I/O. Now comes a day that I need to work on an older SLC 150. I have seen and played with that hand held programmer, but I gotta a question.... Can I get some software for the laptop and a programming cable instead of using that handheld programmer? Can I make my own cable? (I doubt it since that SLC 150 has some sort of DIN connector on it) AB probablly wants $1,000 for the cable...not to crack on you Ken, but we all know how AB handles obsolete parts... Sorry, but I am use to working on the big SLC's and PLC-5. Not everyday do I get a chance like this to work on a SLC 150.

Holly cow... Thanks a million times over. Luckly, I did find an old 1745-PCC interface module that should work? As long as it's not broke. But the wiring and cable pin outs are a big plus! This is going to help me out alot. PS: I don't care if you post links to other boards or sites. The way I look at it, we are all in here for one reason. To share and solve each other's problems. My website traffic is everyone else website traffic, because someone out there knows the answer...No sense in trying to hide the answers. Thanks again 93lt1!

I don't know of a tutorial, but there is a DDE Excel Sheet in the downloads page of MrPLC.com in the EXCEL section. When you open it up, go to TOOLS, MACROS, VB EDITOR to see the vb and dde code. You'll need either FULL VERSION of RS LINX or SINGLE NODE RS LINX to do DDE. I recommend SINGLE NODE, if you only have ONE SLC and a PC talking to each other, but if you want to get data from the Panel View and the SLC, you better get a copy of RS LINX FULL version. There might be a cheaper package. Maybe Ken Roach can comment on the different RS LINX packages and what they can handle. I'll also comment on a kewl tip I learned. If you have RS LINX running, (Full version) that is. And you have a DDE topic created in RS Linx to poll your SLC. Then you can open up a blank Excel sheet. Fire up RS Logix 500. Open ANY DATA TABLE, be it a WORD VALUE or BIT VALUE. Highlight the VALUE, do a "COPY", then task over to EXCEL. Do a "PASTE". A DDE "HOT" Link will be established. When the value changes in the PLC, the and you have Excel Open, the value in the Excel changes in REALTIME as the PLC values change. That's the EASY way to get information from SLC to Excel. But that is making a DDE "Hot" link. You might want to do "Cold" links. Where you open a DDE request, read the SLC value you want, then write that value to an EXCEL cell, once finished, close the DDE link.

Awesome project! I wish I could do it. I think you are on the right track for "inexpensive" using Excel or something like that... These 1200 records or alarms stored in the panelview. These are PRE-SET alarms? Or did you mean you have a history NOW of 1200+ alarms. If it was me, I would look at maybe using DDE to get the alarm history out of the PLC into an Excel or Access. Does your operator have to add comments at the Panel Views? Is there anything wrong with setting a PC out there, maybe the same one with all the DDE interface that they could type text into the PC rather than the panelview? Is there anything way to DUP the alarms in Excel, and use BITS to remap all your alarms from the PLC to Excel rather than sending ASCII? Use Excel to Time and Date stamp with the NOW() function in Excel. DDE to excel works pretty good for me in the past. It's kinda of SLOW to use EXCEL as an operator interface, which I have done before for a few manual functions, but I have had no trouble with DDE logging and storing data from the PLC on a FOUR SECOND cycle machine. It's real easy to get data out of the PLC. 'tell it weere to read the data from data = DDERequest(RSIchan, "F8:10") 'tell it were to write the data to which cell Cells(lngRow, 1).Value = data Time stamp the message with the following: 'writes the time and date to any cell you tell it too Cells(lngRow, 12).Value = Now() lngRow ofcourse is a varible...but you can hard code a ROW in any cell of Excel. Make sure you close your "COLD" DDE link DDETerminate (RSIchan) Keep us posted.

Please post items for sale and services in the "ITEMS FORSALE" section of MrPLC.com Thanks!

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Paul, If I make a PLC CODE - Mitsubishi downloads page, would you want to upload the PDF's?

Can any supply a seqencer output example that is controlling a simple pick and place or sequence air operated device? I want to see how safe your application is. Please upload to this topic.

Chris, Mostly just to refresh the page and update the database. I am using MYSQL database, which is a plus for MASSIVE amounts of data and messages, but it's alittle bit slower than a TEXT database. So I am sorry, I need the "REFRESH" screen to update your viewable post. Thanks for your feedback, any other comments are very welcome. Also this website is only ONE MONTH old, not doing too bad so far, we are averaging one new member a day. Stuff like this takes time, if you have or know co workers, please feel free to use the REFER a FRIEND at the bottom of the main forum screen to let them know about MrPLC.com. Also if this goes for anyone, if you'd like to see a forum added, please ask. Or if you have an area of expertise and would like to moderate a section of MrPLC just let us know.

I just want you to know ED, we are running an advert on most all search engines. See if you can figure out which ones...Hint: We are not found using the keywords "MrPLC" either...we are using other keywords "allen bradley plc" etc...

Also some of you might not know, but you can go to your CONTROL PANEL near the top of the screen by your login name, and link your own AVATOR or picture to appear like mine, or pick one of the default ones. You can also have a SIGNATURE file for your name so you don't have to retype it every time. And those that are FLASH savy...well you can post FLASH on this board in both your SIG and in the board.... Check out your control panel OPTIONS...they are helpful. :D You can also TRACK topics so that they are e-mailed to you rather than you visiting the board every day. Quite helpful sometimes.

and at 10...you will get 3 and at 50...you will get 4 and at 100...you will get 5 and at 500...you will get 6 and so on and so on.... ;)

Great information! I have not done this myself yet, but I know where to come when I do...right here! As far as your question about POSTING order. I have set the board up to POST NEW messages at the top, because I like to see the new posts FIRST not scroll all the way to the bottom. PLUS as replies that are made moves the WHOLE topic to the top of the FORUM. Call me lazy I guess, but boards that post NEW message to the bottom, are too far to scroll. ;) Also another HINT: If you click "NEW POST" at the top, then you don't have to browse through the whole site to look for your new posts that you have not read yet. This will come in handy later, trust me.