RSEmulate

In another thread, Ken Roach wrote, "I use RSEmulate 500 extensively to test logic, and I understand that it doesn't provide hardware communication interfaces, but one of the reasons it was built was to provide a product that could be used for emulation and testing without having to install the same size rack and I/O modules."

I've never tried this RSEmulate, but how does it handle analog I/O? Most of my programs are very dependent on analog inputs and emulation without these would be very difficult if not impossible.

Aaron

It is my understanding that emulate can not simulate analog signals. If you had logic that would implement a specific state, say when a certain temperature was reached, I believe you would manualy have to change the value in the data table to test it. If you had multiple analog i/o dependent on each others states this could quickly get nearly imposible to emulate. Perhaps you could write some type of debug logic to handle this but It would probably be more time consuming than it was worth.
This is just my understanding, I am not 100% on this. perhaps others could get more specific

RSEmulate is a controller emulator, not a process simulator. The input data tables can be written to by RSLinx or by RSLogix 500, so you can just "plug in " data values when you want to test reaction to each value.

Real process simulation is a more complex endeavor; Woodhead/SST's PICS software is a leading package for that.

Because I work for the sales department, I'm usually working on small code segments to perform a particular function and to be integrated in a customer's program. Last night, for example, I used RSEmulate 500 to develop an ASCII parsing routine to pull a mix of integers and decimal values out of a comma-delimited string. I got this done three days faster than if I'd needed a controller to do it, because I'm a hundred miles from my office and all the processors here at the site are busy pumping sewage and wouldn't appreciate me parsing strings in them.

RSEmulate isn't perfect; I'd prefer if the port control or message instructions worked identically to the hardware controllers, and I/O specific instructions like interrupts and block transfers don't emulate at all. Probably the biggest drawback I hear about is that the PID instruction isn't emulated.

The product fits my needs very well. It might not be the right solution for your requirements.

I use RSEmulate bunches!

It has literally saved days on startup because I know that my logic is going to work correctly. It reduced startup to an IO check and timer settings.

It also helps to make sure that everything is right between the PLC and HMI. During simulation, I'm checking not only the PLC code, but all of the HMI interactions, too.

You're right, it doesn't do analog, but there are ways of writing code that can "simulate" your analog cycles.

"It also helps to make sure that everything is right between the PLC and HMI. During simulation, I'm checking not only the PLC code, but all of the HMI interactions, too"

This statement peeks my intrest, can you use rs emulate 500 to simulate say a panelview 1000? does it work with panelbuilder 32? How is this done?

It can be helpfull to test code that parses strings or does data conversion.
What I would like to see is online editing. Lack of it really kills productivity but I guess it's still better than nothing.

I have it running right now with WonderWare and it works great. Panelviews don't have a run-time on a PC so it wouldn't work with them. I've never tried, but it should work for RSView ME and SE and 32.

can anyone with the emu software send it to me would like to try it out and see if it fits my needs

beer said:

can anyone with the emu software send it to me would like to try it out and see if it fits my needs

Click to expand...

This is why no one is going to give it to you

Your Rockwell distributor can set you up with a try-before-you-buy 30 day trial. Give them a call !