Managing Compactlogix Tag Values After Project Updates

_Dock_

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Sep 2015
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We manufacture machines with lots of variable parameter set points, mostly DINT's but some BOOL.

The issue we have is if a software/project update is pushed out, the technicians have to record every parameter value of the specific machine, do the update, then manipulate the values to back match previous setpoints.

This occurs because most updates are tested on separate machines which setpoints may vary from the machine being updated.

While not a huge issue, it does open up potential for major human error, causing the tech headaches or call backs before they even get to the airport.

Does anyone have a good way of managing this?

Thanks,
 
A package that came recently to us had a "Magic Button"on the HMI, that stores all current setpoints to a text file in the HMI. After you do whatever you need to you press the other magic button and copy back the setpoints to the PLC. You could do this without the HMI, just copy to a array in the PLC with a tag for trigger. You can modify it online even.
 
This is similar to what I had originally thought about, basically just creating a UDT that mirrors the tag values as a MEMORY table then writing it back after a download.
 
There is a sample project for AdvancedHMI that does this. You can edit the code behind the buttons to change to the tags you want to save. It was setup to store array data, so if you have mixed individual tags, it may not be ideal.

You can find the project at the link below under the name SaveDataTableAndRestoreCLX.zip :

https://sourceforge.net/projects/advancedhmi/files/advancedhmi/3.5/SampleProjects/

If you wanted to get more complex, AdvancedHMI could read the list of the tags, then read their data. It could be done with maybe a dozen lines of code.
 
A package that came recently to us had a "Magic Button"on the HMI, that stores all current setpoints to a text file in the HMI. After you do whatever you need to you press the other magic button and copy back the setpoints to the PLC. You could do this without the HMI, just copy to a array in the PLC with a tag for trigger. You can modify it online even.


Hosting the setpoint data in the PLC wouldn't work, since the values in the off-line version of the program wouldn't necessarily match what is in the current program, which is to be overwritten with a download.
 
Yeah, for sure there are a couple of steps more, before download, you go online, save and then you can copy this array into your new program. I know, there are smarter ways to do it, but it will depend if you are doing it once or million times.
Other than this you can export it even with excel and RSLinx. But having this separate array with "checkpoints of the setpoints" will allow you to easily make sure you did all the modifications and minimizes the risk of missing some value
 
If there is a PanelView you can save/restore recipes from a USB drive.
AB Sample code site has code for reading/writing data to the SD card in the PLC, but it's pretty complicated, but does work.
 
I use OPC read/writes through Excel, with a bit of VBA to move things around. It takes a classic or professional version of RSLinx for the OPC. Create Topics in RSLinx for referring to the PLC, then create tag groups with the desired tags/parameters. Rockwell has some sample code available if you’ve used VBA, I think I could post a workbook if you are interested.
 

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