S7 initial DB values

Hi All. Has anyone used S7 DB Initilizer by Runmode Productivity Tools and if so does it work? The idea behind it is to up date the initial values of a DB with the on line values.



Thanks in advance



Jon

What's wrong with using the RAM to ROM function in Simatic Manager?

(I've got a couple of answers to the question, but I'd be interested in your reasons.)

Hi RMA

ROM to RAM function? All the engineering values are held in one DB for each PLC through out our site. These values can, and are modified through SCADA. If EV DB has to be reloaded it will put the original initial values back into the PLC. I am looking to leave on copy of each PLC’s code on the sever which can be used for monitoring and down loading if required.

Just another thought: I have dealt with a similar situation, but prefer not to store the values in the PLC DBs (that would create unique code for each system). Instead, since you already have a SCADA system, why don't you store the values in a database? Then, if the PLC is downloaded from scratch for some reason, it could send a message to the SCADA system to write all of the engineering values to the DB before it starts running the process. This way, the values would always be current. This works very well for me.

Hi S7Guy



What a top idea. Thanks that should work a treat for all the PLC’s that are connected to our SCADA system. This will still leave a few stand alone S7 PLC’s which have large DB’s containing EV values. Any thoughts?

I don't have any stand-alone PLCs, so I have not run into that. Are they completely stand-alone, meaning no ethernet card? If so, I suppose I would grab the values periodically and store them in a database table manually. For instance, I would get a copy of KepWare and a USB MPI adapter, and connect to it. Then I'd upload the values to my tables using the existing SCADA system (I would imagine it would have access to your laptop). I don't know how often you would need to do this, but even with the RunTime software it would be a manual process.

I guess it depends on how flexible your SCADA system is. If it's easy to create a new connection and if it has an MPI driver, then I'd use that. If not, probably RunTime would be better.

http://support.automation.siemens.com/WW/view/en/837001



Thanks for the reply. I did find the above link on Siemens website. It’s a bit long winded, and we have not yet tried it in anger yet, but it seems to work with a off line copy of code.

They should make this a new built-in feature in S7 V5.5.......
Although the Excell way looks kinda fast when you have tons of data. (at least faster then manual changing)

I absolutely second the idea for a new feature to copy the intial values into the actual values. It should be up to the programmer to decide if he wants guestimated initial values, or if he wants the initial values to reflect the actual use.

Apart from that, another guy in our company had made a neat program-change feature in the HMI (MP270). It simply consisted of a script that copied all the important settings from online tags into similar internal tags, and another script that did the same thing the other way.
Then when we ship a program update on a flashcard, all the end-user has to do is to press a button to backup the online settings, swap the card, and then press another button to restore the settings. The panel must not be shutdown in the meantime, or the settings are lost.
The downside with this 'solution' is that it is a chore to find and program all the relevant tags. edit: My collegues HMI only needed to copy approx 100 tags.