Using GX Developer FX

First let me say thank goodness for this forum!...I am an IT manager for a bioprocess manufacturing facility and our lead programmer departed leaving us a little high and dry on some issues in our fermentation lab.

We have fermentors that use PLC's for control and our previous manager had ordered the application GX Developer FX to "map" the registers?...basically what I need to do is to find out how to use the application "GX Developer FX" from Mitsubishi to simply map the PLC registers in our fermentor.

I don't want to change anything...just map the existing registers...I hope I am using the correct terminology when I say "register"...it is what has come up on conversation when discussing this internally.

I would appreciate any advice or direction anyone could give me.

And what do you mean by 'mapping' registers? If you want to know what are the values stored in registers, then you need to make use of monitoring functions.
There are several available in GX Developer, all of them accessible from Online->Monitor menu.

From that menu: 'Device batch' lets you see the values of consecutive registers of same type. Just type a device you want to be the beginning of the batch into the box in the upper left corner.
'Entry data monitor' on the other hand allows you to simultaneously monitor registers of diffirent types. Use 'Register devices' to choose which registers you want to monitor.

We have a company writing a software application for us that will allow us to control the fermentors and monitor the various outputs coming from the fermentors (ph, DO, mixing rate, etc)...the PLC for the fermentor has about 1000 registers that the app developer says they need to know about...for instance, register 1 is for pH output, register 2 is for pH setpoint, etc, etc.

From what I understand, GX Developer FX allows us to simply get a "list" of all the registers available from the fermentors PLC?

Thanks Mchl,

What I really need to do is just create some sort of "output" text file that will list each register for me. We have a company that is making custom software to controll our fermentors and we got GX Developer FX to just let us automatically "map" these registers and produce a list that would be useful for them.

GX developer wont do that for you, unless you know exactly which register is used for what the output of GX will be next to useless

Sure, it will tell you which registers are used by the PLC but not for what

If it is an exisitng PLC and program your best bet would be to get a(hopefully) documented copy of the program from the original developer, this may shed some light on it,

Your only other option is to pay somebody to get the program out of the PLC and document it up for you and decipher which regiters do what so you can pass it to the developers of the PC program

jb61264 said:

Thanks Mchl,

What I really need to do is just create some sort of "output" text file that will list each register for me. We have a company that is making custom software to controll our fermentors and we got GX Developer FX to just let us automatically "map" these registers and produce a list that would be useful for them.

Click to expand...

Here's what I understand your question to be with comment:

First
You want a listing of the PLC's data registers with their associated description of what the data represents. You'll probably need a copy of the original program that has "Tag Names" associated with the different registers. I.e. D0100 = FERM RPARM 1 (Fermentor Recipe Parameter 1). The "Name" will be in the form of a mneumonic. Then all you have to do is use GX Developer to print it out.

If you don't have this, then someone will have to go through the code and figure out what's what. I would guess, though, that there's a display associated with the existing configuration and you would need the proper OIT/HMI (operator interface terminla/human machine interface) software (such as E-Designer, FXDUWIN or SW-MTA-WIN) and then you'd be able to see which register is associated with each object on the display screen. Tedious work.

Second
If your programmers need access to the PLC to find out what values are present in any specific data register at any specific time, you'll need OPC (state of the art) or DDE (old, mostly abandoned) Server software. This permits PC based applications access to the PLC data.

... rab

Sorry, tragically1969 you answered most of the first part before me.

It is well possible, that the program was loaded into PLC together with Comments. If that's the case, you're at home, because everything you need is to get the comments from the PLC (same way you download a program).
In the 'View' menu you can turn on or off displaying comments (statements and notes are also kind of comments, so see if they're available as well).
If you're lucky enough to have a commented program, you can print out a list by choosing 'Device comment' in the Print window (Project->Print)

Second
If your programmers need access to the PLC to find out what values are present in any specific data register at any specific time, you'll need OPC (state of the art) or DDE (old, mostly abandoned) Server software. This permits PC based applications access to the PLC data.

Click to expand...

Or you can use so called 'Computer link', which allows you direct access to PLC registers via RS232 or RS485 (also allows you to remote switch RUN/STOP). It's described in FX Serial Communications Manual.