Help with AB to Red Lion Tag Addressing

I have a connection over DF1 from my Red Lion to the DF1 port of my PC 5 and have comms.

I am trying to setup tags now and in Crimson 3 the addressing format is for B bits for example is B003:0000 but in the plc the address is B3:3/7 in crimson would that be B003:3700 or do I need to make some changes to the address display in Logix 5?

I can chnage it to single line from split line but in the"Binary Bit Display Mode" should I choose the radio button for /Bit or word/bit? Which one will make it come out right for entry into crimson 3?

In Crimson it would be B003:0003, Bit 7.

I find it a whole lot easier to simply export the tags from RSLogix in CVS format and import into Crimson. Never tried it with RS5 tho, but crimson has a create data tags for the PLC5, which imports a CVS file.

Padees is correct. Here is a snip of how that is set up.

Thanks for posting that Bullzi! My picture snip skills need a bit of work.

Another thing I like to do to save a lot of time with Crimson and RSLogix 500 when dealing with imported tags is to use symbols in the PLC pgm with a tiny description . That way, they import into Crimson with that tiny description as a tag description, and don't have to try remember what B3:3/7 is. It really is a time saver.

Padees,
I have never done a import of RSL500 data to create tags in Crimson. So I just tried it. It only imported and created a very small number of tags compared to what was in the .CSV file. I am sure that it has something to do with the Symbol or Description lenght but I couldn't find any rules for what the data must be to make the import work. Do you have any idea what those rules are?

Bullzi,
I have never run across any official rules, just trial and error.

From my experience, description or symbol length is not an issue, just that something has to be in either field for it to import into Crimson. I've used just one character in the past.

Another thing with like timers and such. If you want T4:0.PRE to import into Crimson, that will need a description or symbol as well. A general timer description for T4:0 wont cover everything for that timer.

Hope this helps a bit.

I found my issue. It seems that if you check anything more than the first 2 selections it won't import correctly. I am not sure why but it works if you only click the first 2 selections. See attached.

I think this depends on the contents of the description fields. I seem to recall having problems when the first characters in some of the description fields were special characters or numbers. A tag can't begin with a number. Also, be aware that you can drop down the menu where is says Define: "Tag Names" and pick "Descriptions"...This lets you import the description fields into the Crimson tag descriptions. If I recall correctly, Crimson will put commas between the fields when you do this, which is a minor pita. I have become accustomed to doing an export as Crimson format to fix those oddities using the power of Excel, and then import them back in when I have a need to use this import process. So what could be a one step process might be a five step process and take twenty minutes, but when you are talking about hundreds of tags, it is still as close to perfect as you will find in the hardware based HMI world.

Older versions would complete the import with bad fields and not give you any indication as to what went wrong (if something did). I think later version now will at least tell you when/if it fails.

Note the very bottom disclaimer in your screen capture.

I have a G3 on my desk that I have just started playing with as a replacement for the many PV Plus units we have in the field.

Can someone tell me step by step how this AB tags import is done? My export is from a SLC 5/05 if that makes any difference.

I saw this post and have been poking around in crimson to test it but the only thing I found is where when data tags on the left is highlighted there are 2 selections for tag commands and has both import and export tags.

I tried the import tags option and it defaults to unicode so i chnaged it to.csv so it would see my file on the desktop.

It said it would clear the undo list and asks if you wish to proceed and i clicked yes but after that nothing happens and no tags come in?

Go To Tools, DB, ASCII Export (RS500)



Select CSV, Click OK.



It asks you some stuff, but just click OK.

Open Crimson and select the appropriate PLC, then select Create Data Tags at Device Commands. (red blob)



Opens this gizmo...



Click OK, then select the appropriate file for it to import.



It's a fairly painless process, and only takes about 20 seconds from export from RS500 to import into Crimson.

If there is an error, Crimson will let you know.

FYI, there is a new Crimson manual out now... This year. It's 3.1, which has more clarification. The new manual is only in the help file in C3, Online download is still the old one.

Yeah, my pic snip skills need a lot of work, but hope this helps.

When I import my CSV file after I have sorted through ans removed tags I don't need in my red lion and I do an import everything works.

I now only have 1 issue in that I made 2 new Float data files in the PLC 5 with 200 elements each and 2 new Integer data files with 200 elements each but when I export to CSV after adding those they don't show up as for example I would expect to see F15:0-199 and F16:0-199 and N17:0-199 and N18:0-199

All I see is at the bottom of the file there are tags called DFILE and I named each one of them RED LION 1, RED LION 2,etc. and this shows up in the description column so they show up as DFILE 00015 for the new F15 float file I made but shows up in 1 row like it;s only 1 word?

I thought it may have exported this way because I am not using them in my program yet but I have a N62:0-150 that shows up with N62:0, N62:1, etc each with its own row even though it's a spare and only the first 10 integer word in this file are used in the program.

Can someone help me figure this out please.

If you did not go in and describe every element of the new files, they won't show up when you export comments.

Depending on the purpose of these tags, you could just manually add a tag to Crimson and make it an array tag with 200 items. I recently did this for some data in which each field is just a sample recorded by the PLC of the same value every hour. It is a whole lot easier to reference them in my table in Crimson by using an array tag with an index that I can manipulate with "scroll" buttons.

In your case, if you are going to end up using these new data elements as individual and unique things, each with independent units, formats, etc, then you should just take the csv file, and add your descriptions there. Then you can import it back into RSLogix as well as Crimson.

That makes sense but I have already done a .csv import and have many tags like i want them. When I have everything setup in the plc with these new data files and they have descriptions and such can I do another .csv import of just those tags without massaging the whole file again?

If I do another .csv import of just those tags will it get rind of the tags from my previous import or just add to them? And what if there is a duplicate on the second import? What happen then?

I would take the csv file that you already have massaged and use Excel to edit it. Insert rows, autofill the addresses, etc. Save it and import it into RSLoxig500. It will overwrite any comments that already exist and will add new ones that don't. It will not erase any descriptions that already exist in RSLogix500.

I am not sure what will happen in Crimson if you do another import. Save your cd3 file with a new name and test it and let us know. It is pretty easy to back up and punt if you run into problems as long as you save your file separately from the one you have already started.