RSLogix 5 - I/O config question

Hello all,

I am a first time user of RSLogix 5; I'm attempting to rewrite a customer provided program, but I need to move some of the i/o point descriptions. Keeping in mind that much of the i/o I want to move is not currently in use in the program, so a replace doesn't seem to do what I need it to do. An example of exactly what I'm trying is:

Move all the descriptions from Output word "2" (O:002/0 - O:002/15) to Output word "44".

Unfortunately as is usually the case, I'm under the deadline gun without having any experience with this software. A quick way to do this (other than manually entering each bit description) would save me a toooon of time.

Thanks.

In the menu should be Search and under that Find and Replace, this should allow you to change the addresses with the documentation going with it. You will need to make sure the proper changes are checkmarked. It will require you to do it for each adress involved.

rsdoran said:

In the menu should be Search and under that Find and Replace, this should allow you to change the addresses with the documentation going with it. You will need to make sure the proper changes are checkmarked. It will require you to do it for each adress involved.

Click to expand...

Hmmm...yes, I have tried this. But as I mentioned, it will only perform the change for those addresses found in the program. The addresses I wish to change have not yet been used. I have clicked "symbols", "Address Des" and "Instruction Des", also "move descriptions". Scope is "Global" direction is "down"

Thanks.

The ones not used should not matter or have any descriptions since they are not being use, you would add those when/if they are used, in other words if not used there is nothing to move.

I am not sure what you are doing exactly but what I see is moving a 16 bit Output card from one position to another, maybe slot 2 to slot 44?

rsdoran said:

The ones not used should not matter or have any descriptions since they are not being use, you would add those when/if they are used, in other words if not used there is nothing to move.

I am not sure what you are doing exactly but what I see is moving a 16 bit Output card from one position to another, maybe slot 2 to slot 44?

Click to expand...

The I/O is defined in the Input and Output data files, but the portion of the program referencing these addresses has been removed or was never completed. Therefore find/replace will only find and replace the addresses currently in use in the program. What I'm actually doing is removing Outputs from a PLC5 Rack card and reassigning them to a Numatics RIO valve bank. Unfortunately it's looking more and more like I'm going to have to retype the descriptions for the I/O.

If you are handy with excel you might look into this. It should work for RSLogix5 also.

http://www.mrplc.com/kb/index.php?page=index_v2&id=22&c=11

Mickey said:

If you are handy with excel you might look into this. It should work for RSLogix5 also.

http://www.mrplc.com/kb/index.php?page=index_v2&id=22&c=11

Click to expand...

Thank you Mickey. If I do indeed need to re-enter my I/O, this will certainly be the easiest way to do it. However for the next hour or two I will hold out for a solution that doesn't require lots of typing. Thanks for the valuable feedback.

The only (other) thing I can think of is create a report and print to pdf or a doc, then cut and paste as needed.

Use the databse ascii export feature, which will let you create a comma separated variable (*.csv) file, and edit them in Excel. Once you open the file in excel, or OOO, just change the ones you want changed and you can delete those you don't want to edit.

You can use the very powerful search and replace features in excel to save lots of time.

Also, in excel, I typically sort by address and delete all the stuff I don't want to mess with, since the import will not alter database entries not found in the csv...

One PITA is the fact that if you sort your rows by address they go in alhpanumeric order, not exactly the address order. I made a macro at work to pad the single digit word and bit level addresses with zeros so that alphanumeric and PLC addresses are the same. For example, your addresses will be listed like:

I:0/0
I:0/1
I:0/10
I:0/11
I:0/12
I:0/13
I:0/14
I:0/15
I:0/16
I:0/17
I:0/2

and so on...

Not really a big deal, unless you aren't paying attention and use autofill...octal addressing means you will have to use autofill in groups of eight, but it's still faster than editing them one by one in Logix...

I usually, in excel, change the font to New Courier for a better picture of the length of each description line. (Each line of your address descriptions will end up in a separate column...DESCR1, DESCR2, DESCR3, etc...) If your description configuration in RSLogix is 20 characters per line, and you import a symbol file with more than 20 characters in a field, it will be truncated.

When you import, only the addresses in the csv file will be changed, so you don't have to worry about keeping the whole database in the csv file.

Just be careful in excel not to shift cells like I did once, all my symbols got moved two addresses down!

Then use ASCII import to bring them back into RSLogix.

When you import descriptions, you have the choice to discard or replace each address that already exists when you import.

Once you get used to doing comments this way, you will find it very useful for major changes...

Good Luck!
Paul

EDIT: Sorry Mickey, I scrolled right past your link and now see that you already covered this...

Thanks for your help Paul, this information is indeed quite valuable. Thanks to everyone actually...you've made my day go faster .

Mark

Also you can add a few rungs with say a move block with the same address (the unused addresses) in each part of the move. This will allow the search to work.
Regards Alan Case