Design reusable function blocks

Dear all,

I am currently trying to redesign an old plc project and have some issues doing so. The main thing i want to do is to make my program more modular with a small and readable interface.

I'm working with TIA Portal V13 designing software for a PLC 1500 CPU

My question:
how can i make a block that has a small interface, but where i am still able to connect a lot of global variables that originate from different locations? I thought of using a UDT/PLC data type, but my data will not be indivually accesable in a DB?.

I hope someone can enlighten me on this problem!

Hi Glenn,

Welcome to the forum! You can use UDT and still access the individual tags.

You could also use STAT in your FB. And pass the info directly to those, separately from your FB call. Is that what you want?

If the shared data is stored in multiple shared DBs, then you have to assign an IO pin on the FC or FB for each of these multiple locations. And yes, it is a good idea to define the data structure for each by UDTs.

The individual elements of the data will be accessible in the FC or FB by means of the way the UDT is structured.

first of all,thanks for the replies!

I want to define my data structure using a UDT so i can reuse my block in multiple subprograms and have small interface as there is only 1 input (visually). in this UDT contains a lot of boolean variables that are used as conditions. i want to create a different UDT for each subprogram serving as a kind of recipe containing all the condition variables so that i can reuse the function block.

this in itself i can do, but i still want to be able to address the variables individually because they are also used elsewhere.
I hope this clarifies my intentions ,but i will try to make a drawing to support it.