Eyal Koren

Hi Dan, What the function does is as follows: 1. Wait for the currently SD command to finish. 2. After all currently activated read/write tasks are done, it does not allow further tasks to initiate. 3. A success bit will rise, indicates that You can safely remove the SD card without the risk of corrupting data.

Hi Ronald, UniOPC Server is compliant with the OPC Foundation's Data Access Custom Interface Standards through to Version 3.00. Unfortunately, is does not support HDA. It is also not possible to read data directly from the SD card. One possible way to automate this process is as follows. 1. Create a subroutine on the PLC that will be initiated either periodically or by the SCADA. 2. In the subroutine, extract the data from a data table to a vector of MI's (using the "read row" or "read column" commands). 3. send the vector to the SCADA. If the vector is longer than 32 MI's, you will have to send it in chunks. It is not the most elegant solution, but it should work.

Hi Dan, Unfortunately, you cannot read a CSV file from the SD card to the PLC. However, you can change your logging system in the following way: 1. log all your data to data table(s). 2. Periodically export the data table to a UDT file. You can either create a new file or append to an existing file. 3. When needed, you can import the UDT file (or part of it) back to a data table and use the data as you will. Hope that helps

Hello Ozone, When the SD card is full, bit 6 in SI66 will turn on. No PLC crashing (or other functionlities) is related to that case.

Hi, Not only it is possible to replace the battery while the PLC is powered, it is also recommended. This way you can keep your system running without losing any values stored in RAM.

Hi Tempo, There are several ways to measure the interval between two events. One of them is actually what you suggested, hence storing the timer current time into a variable. The attached application demonstrates how you can do that (with several other features). This application was taken from the U90Ladder sample projects folder. There are several other timed based applications, so you can check what method is better for you. If something still isn't clear, please let me know. Timer values Store and Load.U90

Hi, It is possible to receive an SMS with mixed constants and numeric variables. I attached an application i modified for your convenience. Please open the application and go to the SMS config function block. You will see the MB1 is activated when message successfully received, and the time value is stored to three different MI's. Please note that to send a variable, the syntax needed to be sent from the phone is as follows (let's assume that the time is 11:11.11): FIRE at Station 2 Time #11#:#11.#11# Just to make it clear - for the PLC to recognize a variable, you need to wrap it with pound signs V120_SMS_Sub_Stations.vlp

Hi Milen, Unilogic has only one type of floating point data type, which is the single precision (32bit). Unfortunately, there is no way to convert 64 bit floating point value to 32bit floating point value, because Unilogic cannot recognize this data type (in general, this conversion is possible in environments that work with 64bit values, but you will lose a significant part of the precision or will receive a result of +inf or -inf if the value is too high)

Hi Dorian, I will refer this request to our R&D department. Thanks for your input on this.

Hi, Thank you for this feedback. We do receive requests from time to time to have NTEP, however, at this moment, we are not planning to apply for this certification. Still, it is something we can consider for the future. The more we grow, the more we can invest in applying for standards.

Hello Dorian, If you wish to initialize the operands after download, please do the following: 1. In Visilogic, go to the Connection menu. Select the last option - Communication&OS. 2. From the opened window, select the second tab from the left. On the bottom of the window you will see "Reset Options". Select "Initialize and Reset". This is a very useful tool for cleaning up the values remaining in the PLC. Please note that all the values that are not predefined as "Value at startup" will be reset to zero.

Hi Laura, For a start, there isn't really a "best" way. Both protocols are doing the same job, on the same physical layers, in (approx.) the same speed. Before making a decision, more information is needed: What type of communication are you using (serial/Ethernet)? what is the distance between the PLC's? Are there any other devices connected to this network? If using Ethernet for communication, it is easier (on my opinion) to define the PLC Datacom function blocks for data transfer. If using serial communication, Modbus is the fastest protocol to set up in your system.

Hi Dorian, For storing predefined settings for your application or working with recipes, the recommended solution is to work with data tables. Data tables are areas in the PLC memory where you can store and retrieve data during runtime, and also export/import this data to Excel. You can store predefined settings for different machines, and also enable changing these values by the user. For more information, please refer to the Data Tables section in Visilogic help file. Also, there are plenty of application examples you can explore in Visilogic

Your main focus should be in selecting the right sensors for this task. I suppose that by inductive sensors you refer to proximity sensors, and that it is mechanically feasible to install such sensors in a way that will sense a change in distance for each revolution. After obtaining a suitable sensor (main selection criteria is distance for sensing and frequency) all you need to do is define the sensor in your the Visilogic hardware configuration. You have several options for high speed input: 1. define the input as counter - in that case you will have to build your own logic to calculate the frequency. 2. define as frequency measurement - in that case the input you will get is the actual frequency. There are 3 window frames to select from: 125ms, 500ms and 1000ms. Select your window frame according to the desired update time. I hope that answers your question.

Hi zaspany, You post raise a question: The Jazz and M90/91 products does not literally have a floating point data types, therefore it is not possible to read float registers, and sure not to convert them to integers. Please explain the issue thoroughly and if possible send the application.

Hi ftroche, Please send the tachometer model, or more preferably the datasheet of the product. Before getting to the solution, we first need to know what is the communication protocol that the tachometer works with.

Hi Nildo, There are several application examples in Visilogic that utilize PID functionality, specifically for temperature control. To access them go to the Help Menu, select the Examples icon and search for the PID folder. That should give you a good practice of how to begin with your project.

Hi, we will be happy to connect you with relevant people, please send Holly.Dillon@unitronics.com information about your location and needs. In addition, we have recently started a program for system integrators, we believe it will increae our ability to recommend people over time. A job board is a good idea – we will see what we can do about that. On the top of that, you are more than welcome to contact our free technical support service at support@unitronics.com and you also will find our forum quite useful for many of your questions. Thank you for your valuable feedback!

Good luck with that Mike. If you need further support you are more than welcome to contact us at support@unitronics.com, or keep posting in the forum

Hi Huin, According to the ABB catalog, UDP communication is used for display updates and communication between ABB controllers. Basically, you can use the TCP PROTOCOL function block to directly influence these elements, but i cannot see a good reason to do so. Instead, use the MODBUS TCP protocol for communication. It is a well established protocol which will prevent messing around with low level communications and will make your life easier.

To fix this issue in Windows 7, please do the following: 1. Press the Start button. From the search pane type "display". 2. From the search results select the first one, titled "Display". 3. Make sure that the font size is set to "Smaller - 100%", and not 125% or any other custom size. 4. Log off and back on, start Visilogic and you should get the operand description correctly. Regarding your other question, unfortunately it will not possible to open newer applications in older Visilogic versions. Please let me know if this issue is fixed

Hello Easy700, The issue you are describing is probably caused from trying to activate a coil more than once in you application (O0, O1 or both). The whole principle of PLC ladder programming will not allow this. However, if you are willing to activate a coil from more than one place in your application, you are free to use the Set/Reset coils however you like. Please note that this is not a bug nor a phenomenon related to Unitronics products. For further information, you can look up "Double Coil Syndrome", or look in this post: http://www.plctalk.net/qanda/showthread.php?t=4365

Hi Marco, The last page of the document refers to the "Save function". Did you try that? "The Save(string filePath, FileType fileType) saves the table or tables into a file. Please note that choosing FDT or XML saves the entire DataTables structure and values into a file. However, a UDT file can only contain 1 table. In this case dataTables.Tables[0] will be the table that will be saved to the file. For saving a table into a UDT file other than the first table, please use either one of the following overloads: public void SaveToUDT(string filePath, int tableIndex) public void SaveToUDT(string filePath, string tableName) Another important note is that UDT file cannot contain a table that has PartOfProject columns. This means that trying to save a table that contains PartOfProject columsn will result an exception! "

Hi Bettim, As Alex mentioned, you can use the Jazz for controlling a stepper motor driver, but you will have to develop more sophisticated capabilities yourself. As an alternative, you can use Unitronics Vision PLC's (V350 or V130 TR models). they offer: 1. PTO function blocks - enabling easy definition for stepper motors, profiling of acceleration/deceleration, relative/absolute move functions and more. 2. Visilogic - A modern development environment packed with features. Very easy to master. 3. Expanding your project - unlike the jazz, Vision PLC's are expandable in terms of I/O. Obviously, the Vision PLC's are more expensive than Jazz, but you may consider the time saved for developing your application in Visilogic worth much more than the price differences.

Hi Mike, With Unican, you can send up to 16 MI's in every message. you can extract a data table row to a vector of MI's and then send it to each of the PLC's in the network (depends on the size of the data table - you may need more than one Send Unican function block to send the whole row. I made two applications to demonstrate a way to make this work. The first will send a whole data table row in a sequence that will send the whole table in the same subroutine, while the second will receive the data and distribute it to create a duplicate of the original data table. Please note that this is far from ideal and is only suitable for small data tables (if the table is too long you will get a watchdog error do to scan time length). A more sophisticated solution is to create a logic that will send only the values that were changed by the user. This will prevent high traffic over the bus. Also keep in mind that you need to send these messages to every unit separately. V570_Unican_receive DT.vlp V570_Unican_Send DT.vlp