Step7 / PLCSIM: trend view of symbols/memory?

I'm wondering if there any way for monitoring symbols or memory bits/bytes/words in a trend view in either Step7 or PLCSIM?

It looks like I can only view the current values....
there is a "record" feature in the PLCSIM but as i see it just show the values in a windows only, no trend view.
What i'm looking for is something similar to the "sampling trace" in the CoDeSys or so...


thanks in advance

PLCSIM is purely there for executing and testing your logic and code. Think of it like the PLC CPU. There is no trace or trend facility in the CPU so PLCSIM doesn't have one either. The 'record' facility allows you to set particular patterns of inputs or values in memory as a program executes, and then subsequently replay exactly the same sequence after having made modifications to the program itself. The same values or settings will be adjusted at the same time intervals as you originally recorded. This is quite a good feature for checking if a change you've made to the code actually produced the result you were looking for.

What is perhaps a better question is 'why doesn't STEP7 have a simple trend or trace facility?' This should be useable regardless of whether the execution engine is the CPU or PLCSIM.

Ken

It's not that difficult to write your own sampler that simply copies a variable to a DB (say every 10ms or every scan if you want). You just need a bit of logic to determine when to start (the trigger condition) and stop sampling (for example I store data until the DB is full - I make the DB the size of the sample I want). Once the DB is full, upload the DB to your programmer, generate source code from the DB, export this to Excel and hey presto you can have a trend graph in about a minute. OK it's a bit 'handraulic' but you can get results pretty quickly.

SimonGoldsworthy said:

Once the DB is full, upload the DB to your programmer, generate source code from the DB, export this to Excel and hey presto you can have a trend graph in about a minute. OK it's a bit 'handraulic' but you can get results pretty quickly.

Click to expand...

how to export the source code to excel?

To view trend add ProtoolRT PC panel or MP370 Touch to project for visualization and simulation I/O.

SimonGoldsworthy, vbmenu_register("postmenu_146073", true);

thanks for the advice, will try.



Ken M,
thanks for your reply.



EKBist,

I have tried that, but the update time in protool is too long..

martin3885 said:

how to export the source code to excel?

Click to expand...

Sorry, my wording is misleading - export the source code onto your desktop and then open excel and use import data.