Custom Data Monitors in RSLogix

Yo, friends and neighbors,

A few remarks made in another thread makes me think that some of you folks out there might not be familiar with the Custom Data Monitor features of RSLogix5 and RSLogix500. That would be a shame. Take a look at this sample:
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If your version of the software supports them, you can have up to 255 of these neat little monitors - all with helpful names which you assign - and then pop up one (or more) on your screen whenever you need to use it.

Neat trick (which works for regular monitor windows too): Right-click the little icon way up on the upper left corner of the monitor window’s title bar. Then click the “On Top” selection from the menu. Now the window won’t play “hide and seek” whenever you click something on your ladder editor window.

Use your keyboard’s “Insert” key when you want to add in a spare line.

One of my favorite uses for Custom Display Monitors: I include notes on how to “operate” the program when I email customers a chunk of ladder logic code. That way they can have the “how to” instructions handy right on the screen while they scroll up and down through the ladders.

If you want to know more about this subject, you can search for “CDM” in the RSLogix online help files.

Thanks for the tip, Ron. I knew about the monitors, but I didn't realize I could insert "comments" as well!

Thanks Ron,

Life will be much simpler with these features, currently what I do is either go to the data tables to monitor them or climb the ladder to watch what is happening.

Thankyou Again

More fun with CDMs

Here's a trick you might not know:

CDNs take indirect addresses.

If I've got some logic in a For-Next loop, and I want to take a look at just one peice of data, I'll assign a pointer that isn't used in the program, and use the CDM to write to it.

The rest of the CDM will be indirect addresses using that pointer word. Now I can monitor a single data set.

trendx

RS Logix also has a trend option that I do not see very many people use. Scroll down past all of your data files right click on trends then click on new. Name the trend. Open the new trend file and you can drag and drop addresses into the chart including acc and other data. Right click on the chart to change the chart properties such as refresh rate and buffer size, etc., it will also display the comments for the addresses from the existing program if you select that option in the chart properties. It is a scaled down version of their RS trend software. It runs with linx lite so you do not have to have the professional or oem versions of linx that are required for the full blown RS Trend. The draw back is that it will not save data to a file except for a snapshot so when you close the program any data that you have graphed is gone, but I find it very useful for troubleshooting and short term data monitoring. I sometimes store some data by doing a printscreen and pasting into a program such as word.

Wow is that ever neat!

Thanks Ron.

Yes, CDMs in RSLogix5 and RSLogix500 are SO useful and easy to use, that I am surprised they weren't included with RSLogix5000 !!

Instead we have the clunky "Tag Data Monitor Tool", which allows us to see tag data from multiple controllers.

I suspect that the developers thought that this capability would be better than limiting tag data monitoring to one controller only. However, I also suspect that the majority of Logix5000 systems only use one controller anyway (certainly the case for CompactLogix, FlexLogix, DriveLogix, and SoftLogix).

Fairly high on a "wish-list" for RSLogix5000 is the CDM capability as provided on 5 and 500....I don't know why we couldn't have both facilities...

it's not quite the same as the CDM in RSLogix5 and RSLogix500 (and not as good by the way) – but the Quick Watch feature comes in handy from time-to-time in RSLogx5000 ...

from the main menu, click View > Watch ...

the "Current Routine" Watch List will pop up ... note that this feature will automatically populate itself with every tag being used in your current routine ... in most cases, this is unusable – since too many tags are added to the list ... so ...

now click Quick Watch ...

here you can fill in whatever data you're interested in – much like the CDM ...

you can use Drag-and-Drop to select tags from your ladder file – or click in the Name field and use the pull-down feature to select a tag ...

note: since the Quick Watch uses the same popup window as the Find feature, you'll want to remember that little tab shown below ... it can (usually) take you back to where you were on the Quick Watch window ...

.

Ron Beaufort said:

it's not quite the same as the CDM in RSLogix5 and RSLogix500 (and not as good by the way) – but the Quick Watch feature comes in handy from time-to-time in RSLogx5000 ...

from the main menu, click View > Watch ...

the "Current Routine" Watch List will pop up ... note that this feature will automatically populate itself with every tag being used in your current routine ... in most cases, this is unusable – since too many tags are added to the list ... so ...

now click Quick Watch ...

here you can fill in whatever data you're interested in – much like the CDM ...

you can use Drag-and-Drop to select tags from your ladder file – or click in the Name field and use the pull-down feature to select a tag ...

note: since the Quick Watch uses the same popup window as the Find feature, you'll want to remember that little tab shown below ... it can (usually) take you back to where you were on the Quick Watch window ...

.

Click to expand...

What does the CDM do that the Quick watch does not? I want to understand and start using both for fault finding.

What does the CDM do that the Quick watch does not? I want to understand and start using both for fault finding.

Click to expand...

for one thing the CDM will allow you to type in "notes" ... anything that isn't an actual valid "address" will be entered in a contrasting color ... comments such as: "Make sure that the RED test lead is connected to Point A" might be helpful to field troubleshooters ...

plus, the CDM gets saved when you save your RSS file ... the Quick Watch must be set up again each session ...

plus you can have multiple CDMs ... one for the conveyor ... one for the grinder ... etc. ...

Thank you. Do you pehaps know how to put multiple elements in the cdm? I have a program that uses N200:0-N200:420.

Is there a way to get this entire data block into the cdm without typing in all 420 addresses by hand? I tried to select on a address and hold shift and select down the list a little bit but that did not work.

try to highlight the entire range - then Copy and Paste ... that works for me on RSLogix500 version 8.30.01 ...

to select the entire range, click the first location - then hold Shift while you click the last location ...

Nice. I just tried this and it worked for me too (RSLogix v 8.40.00).

I opened a program created a new CDM and opened it. Then, I opened file N7 data window. I changed the number of columns to 1 (not sure what I was thinking) but after doing so, I could not select multiple addresses. So, I changed the columns back to the default of 10.

Next, I clicked on N7:0, then held the shift key and clicked on N7:219, and they were all highlighted (N7:0 to N7:219). Then I simply dragged and dropped the selection onto the CDM and they all populated, and get this, they are even in the correct order!

I changed the number of columns to 1 (not sure what I was thinking) but after doing so, I could not select multiple addresses.

Click to expand...

try clicking on the LOCATIONS themselves rather than on the ADDRESSES ...

everything considered, if you need THAT many locations on your CDM, it might be easier just to open the Data Table file itself ...