Is there a way to retreive the descriptive part of a SLC 500

I need help in trying to retreive the descriptive part of a ladder logic to help me troubleshoot the machine...somebody wrote it and I am having a hard time trying to find the cause of the fault in the process.

With A-B and most other platfroms the comments and nicknames are stored in the PC, not the PLC. I'm pretty sure you can only access this if you have a copy of the programming software and the original source code of the program.

Tom is correct; the ladder logic comments and address descriptions are stored in an offline file that is not loaded into the SLC-500 controller itself.

You're in a classic quandary for a PLC programmer who has inherited a controller with no offline copy of the program. There's no easy way out; try hard to find the offline copy or contact the author, otherwise you're in for a long process of deduction.

Another option may be to consult you hard copy (printout) of the ladder logic.

We keep our latest copy of the ladder logic on the network.
Normally when I update any changes, I rename the old version.
i.e. oldversion_month_day_year.rss

If you have a hard copy, you may be missing some of the newer changes/comments, but you may be able to reconstruct most of it.

I name all of my ladder files with the date as the end of the file name.
Someone told me to do it this way, and it made sense, so I've been doing it ever since.
I sometimes will date my files into the future when I am making a lot of changes.
i.e.
1st iteration...MyMondoLadderFile071502.rss
2nd iteration...MyMondoLadderFile071602.rss
3rd iteration...MyMondoLadderFile071702.rss
etc.
The most recent File will always have the most recent date.

When useing date convetions for version tracking, I use the format of (Name_yymmdd) with this convention the latest version will always be at the bottom of the list of similar names.
ie lest likely to change to most likely to change. L-R.

I have said this before and I know it is of no help whatsoever in this case but, all the Mitsubishi PLC's with more than 1k of memory (which is every one apart from the 2 smallest brick types) allow you to download comments etc into the plc. The documentation stays with the plc (With software higher than MEDOC)
Its cases like this where that kind of thing is a boon.

I know that this is AB specific, but if you change the name of the program to reflect the date that it was last modified...... The software will complain that it is a diff. program when you go online.

What I do, and I am sure that people here will scream at me, is to Cntrl-C Cntrol-V the program. Windows will automatically save a copy of the program called copy of [program name] and increment the copy count.

This works for me. The latest program has the largest copy number. Plus Windows records the date when this copy was generated.

I guess that it doesn't matter what you do, as long as everyone involved understands what your system is, i.e. FileNamingConvention.txt in folder.

thank you ...I like the idea...talk to you soon ..

What the heck is Crusty smoking ??