Indirect Addressing Questions?

[kdcui]

Hi all,

I'm brand new to the Unitronics Vision line after about 6 years on AB ControlLogix and PLC5, so pardon what might be some "noob" questions.
I couldn't find my answers after a forum search and maybe I am overlooking something in the documentation.

 

I'm used to the relative ease of being able to indirectly address mostly anything from my PLC5 days, and I'm trying to figure out the best way to perform some similar operations in a Vision 130.

 

I need to loop through a routine that will control 12 valves.  I'm going to utilize an MI register as my loop pointer / index and loop through with a Jump / Label.
I've decided to store configuration bits and buffer the valve commands into a series of MIs so that I can indirectly access a particular bit. 

I really have 2 questions:

 

1) I'd like to indirectly address the output bit for the actual valve using a register (MI) that contains my valve commands.
 

MI 400 is my valve pointer.
MI 402 is my output pointer

MI:401 is my register for valve 1.  Bit 0 is my output bit. Other bits in the register will correspond to other status indicators (NO / NC, Valve failure, etc...)

Here is an example of how would have coded it in "Allen-Bradley parlance" using the vision naming convention.  What would the equivalent be with Vision?  I have a feeling it may be the Numeric to Bit vector instruction?

So in this example, MI 400 = 401, and MI 402 = 1

 MI [MI 400]/0         O[MI 402]
---|   |---------------(     )

2) Is it possible to indirectly address a timer?  I have some timers associated with each valve and I cannot find a way to start a timer indirectly.  I'd like to avoid copy and pasting 12 times over.  It's not too much work to directly address them but it will look nicer and fit within the loop.

Thanks!

 

[Joe Tauser]

Alas, the Unitronics way of indirect addressing is not as easy as the AB way.  I, too, cut my teeth on PLC5's and SLC 500's.  I can't stomach the price for the software for the new stuff so I haven't gone there.  What AB does behind the scenes we will have to crowbar through with individual functions.  

 

First, read all the Help on "Load Indirect" and "Store Indirect" functions.   You can't indirectly access timer presets .

 

As you've guessed, a NUM->BITS block will map your MI value directly.  As practice you can make a screen that lets you set 12 bit states and then you store them to an MI using BIT->NUM.

 

There's no way around playing with the software for a day or so to get used to how this particular brand works.  Hopefully you have a PLC on your desk to test drive.

 

Joe T. 

[kdcui]

Thanks Joe.

Ill do some playing in my 130 when I return from vacation.

Kris