Control Logix 5000 Can you search for forced items....

Can you search a program in RSLogix 5000 and find all of the forced items...??

I don't have a system here but with the Controller Tags open double click on the 'Force mask' title. Does that re-sort them to place forced ones at one end?

You would think so, but no.

Double clicking does nothing.

If you right click on the column the "Sort Column" is available for every column BUT 'Force Mask'.

While were on the subject of columns, what does the blue left arrow on the column header indicate?

be careful with what you ask for ...

RSLogix5000 does have a "Find All Forces" button ...

but BE CAREFUL ... there is a potentially deadly "gotcha" with this one ...

I refuse to let my students use it - because it only searches for forces IN ROUTINES and will NOT find any forces which exist only in the tags ... (for example: forces placed on "unprogrammed" new equipment during commissioning, etc.) ...

picture a new hydraulic ram being exercised for alignment purposes by having its tag being forced ON ... then the force is left in place - but disabled ... Beginner Bob does the handy-dandy "Find All Forces" trick - but the "tag only" force doesn't show up ... (specifically, the new ram's address hasn't been programmed into a routine yet) ... Bob enables "his" forces - without realizing that the hydraulic ram is going to stroke ...

the only way that I've found to be satisfactorily reliable to "Find All Forces" is to carefully scan down through the Force Mask column - and look for forces there ...

and here's the Online Help book's answer about the blue arrow ...

Ron Beaufort said:

and here's the Online Help book's answer about the blue arrow ...

Click to expand...

How strange... You would think that's pretty much always going to be the case, but I'm learning, that with CLX normal is anything but.


PS

I confess, I did not try to look up that answer...

Ron Beaufort said:

RSLogix5000 does have a "Find All Forces" button ...

but BE CAREFUL ... there is a potentially deadly "gotcha" with this one ...

I refuse to let my students use it - because it only searches for forces IN ROUTINES and will NOT find any forces which exist only in the tags ... (for example: forces placed on "unprogrammed" new equipment during commissioning, etc.) ...

picture a new hydraulic ram being exercised for alignment purposes by having its tag being forced ON ... then the force is left in place - but disabled ... Beginner Bob does the handy-dandy "Find All Forces" trick - but the "tag only" force doesn't show up ... (specifically, the new ram's address hasn't been programmed into a routine yet) ... Bob enables "his" forces - without realizing that the hydraulic ram is going to stroke ...

the only way that I've found to be satisfactorily reliable to "Find All Forces" is to carefully scan down through the Force Mask column - and look for forces there ...

Click to expand...

Funny, I tried that earlier but it didn't find anything,
but now it works...

Take the above situation (yep big hydro ram) add a 800HP 480vac motor and about 20+ ~2HP motors... And you have my situation.
There was 3 of us working on this. Now there's just me. And at least a dozen forced bits to keep it going. Yep, new install, production running..... and the program's not finished yet...
"Hey how come I cant turn this off...?" Ummm, try it now...

Funny, I tried that earlier but it didn't find anything, but now it works...

Click to expand...

do you mean that the "Find All Forces" button didn't work - or that looking through the "Force Mask" didn't work? ...

if it's the "Find All Forces" button that acted weird, then you probably neglected to adjust the "Default Settings" and only searched in the "Current Routine" – instead of in "All Routines" ...

or ...

you might have failed to open the little known "Find Within" secret closet and thus left the proper "Options" unchecked ...

or ...

perhaps you left the "Wrap" setting turned off ...

in any of these cases, you wouldn't have obtained the real-live-honest-to-goodness "Find All Forces" search you expected ... you would have merely gotten a pseudo-faked-out-wishy-washy "Find All Forces" search instead ...

either way, the search won't find a Force that exists only in the Tags – and not in the Routines (as already discussed above) ... which automatically takes it out of the "Worth Using" column on my personal clipboard of RSLogix5000 features ...

(continued in my next post - right after Bernie's who slipped one in there while I was typing) ...

That's one thing that bugs me about RSLogix 5000. You would think the default options would be 'search absolutely everywhere!'. (That would be a great option line.) I've gotten caught by that a few times. Especially in a Search-Replace then thinking I have changed them all.

on the other hand, if CAREFULLY looking through the "Force Mask" column didn't find an existing force, then maybe your "Show" button wasn't set for "Show All" so some of the (forced) tags weren't even shown on the list ...

so are we having fun yet? ...

That's one thing that bugs me about RSLogix 5000. You would think the default options would be 'search absolutely everywhere!'. (That would be a great option line.)

Click to expand...

well, the things that bug you, Bernie, are putting beans on my table ... I absolutely LOVE these little quirks and foibles ...

for instance, in my classes using the "Quick Find" feature is absolutely verboten ... it ALWAYS reverts to a "Local Routine" search – and so it misses any references to something located in another routine ...

the most amusing thing (you just gotta laugh) is that the same feature can be set up to work perfectly in the older RSLogix5 and RSLogix500 software – so many students try to use it out of sheer habit ...

case in point: teaching even a beginning student how to do an effective search in RSLogix5 or RSLogix500 usually takes about 10 or 15 minutes of total classroom time ... teaching the SAME SKILLS to even (or especially to?) an experienced student in RSLogix5000 takes at least two hours ... much of that time is occupied with stressing - and demonstrating - which features are NOT reliable – and should NEVER be used ...

Ron Beaufort said:

the most amusing thing (you just gotta laugh...

Click to expand...

You can only laugh after you have shed all of the blood, sweat and tears that a human can possible expel.

Then all that's left is a nervous half crazy chuckle that might be construed as laughter...

Truth is, I am used to working with Omrons PLCs using CXProgrammer.
Although the AB CLX PLC's are loads easier to use, the software leaves much to be desired.
Where as Omron's CS1 series require more work to accomplish the same task, the software seems to be a lot more refined.

Ron Beaufort said:

do you mean that the "Find All Forces" button didn't work - or that looking through the "Force Mask" didn't work? ...
if it's the "Find All Forces" button that acted weird, then you probably neglected to adjust the "Default Settings" and only searched in the "Current Routine" – instead of in "All Routines" ...
or ...
you might have failed to open the little known "Find Within" secret closet and thus left the proper "Options" unchecked ...
or ...
perhaps you left the "Wrap" setting turned off ...
in any of these cases, you wouldn't have obtained the real-live-honest-to-goodness "Find All Forces" search you expected ... you would have merely gotten a pseudo-faked-out-wishy-washy "Find All Forces" search instead ...
either way, the search won't find a Force that exists only in the Tags – and not in the Routines (as already discussed above) ... which automatically takes it out of the "Worth Using" column on my personal clipboard of RSLogix5000 features ...
(continued in my next post - right after Bernie's who slipped one in there while I was typing) ...

Click to expand...

Honestly I am not sure what it was...
I'm sure I tried it the default way first. I was looking through the software for a way to search and stumbled across it...
Nope that didn't work. Then I mucked around with EVERY setting and it seemed to work every time.

Ron Beaufort said:

on the other hand, if CAREFULLY looking through the "Force Mask" column didn't find an existing force, then maybe your "Show" button wasn't set for "Show All" so some of the (forced) tags weren't even shown on the list ...

so are we having fun yet? ...

Click to expand...

You have got to be kidding me...
But then again, I cant tell you how many times I gone to "monitor" a tag only to have the scroll bar all the way to the right... Wheres the &*^% value...?
O, oops, scroll back to the left, there it is

I cant tell you how many times I gone to "monitor" a tag only to have the scroll bar all the way to the right... Wheres the &*^% value...? O, oops, scroll back to the left, there it is

Click to expand...

here's the "darker side" of that little scroll bar trick ...

the top of the picture shows what Technician Ted WANTS to accomplish – namely just typing a ONE into the "Value" column to simply "toggle" a bit ...

the bottom of the picture shows what happens when Ted gets in a hurry – and types in the ONE without carefully checking the screen setup ... notice that the scroll bar has been inadvertently shifted to the right – so it's the "Force Mask" column that gets the ONE ...

so guess what happens if the Forces are (sooner or later) enabled? ...

this particular situation comes up at least three or four times in every class ... the students often accuse me of secretly putting the forces into their hands-on experiments just to test their troubleshooting skills ... I'm certainly not above that type of mischief – but in most cases this sort of stuff just "happens" without any assistance from me ...

the important thing to remember is that most people (programmers, etc.) who work with this software day-in-and-day-out sooner or later get used to its quirks and idiosyncrasies ... on the other hand, 99% of the students in my classes are maintenance technicians who only fire up the software once in blue moon (and even less often if they get their druthers) ... to them the software is a tool that they're forced to use for troubleshooting a PLC-controlled piece of equipment and getting it running again as quickly as possible ... trying to remember all of these little tricks and traps is "burdensome" to say the least ...

the biggest problem for many of my students is that they've been successfully working with RSLogix5 and RSLogix500 software for quite awhile ... but now their plants are getting in more and more systems that use RSLogix5000 ... their bosses can't seem to understand why their "PLC top guns" are having such a hard time working with the "new-and-improved-latest-and-greatest" AB product line ... some of the things we're talking about here might seem humorous from our comfortable point of view – but when the production line is down at three o'clock in the morning, these issues are far from trivial ...