Connected Component Workbench Beginner Questions

Hello and greetings all!

First time poster, looks like a great resource for newbies like me

Does anyone have any great youtube beginner videos which they could recommend for connected components workbench? I also have some questions I'm going to periodically post.

Quick question hopefully somebody can help me with?

1) I've created a DataType Structure called "Animal" with an underlying string element called "Name".
2) I've created a Global Array of Animals called "Zoo" (array size 10).

I can't seem to Alias any of the Animals within Zoo. For example I can't alias Zoo[2] or Zoo[2].Name. There is a column for it but I can't enter anything. All I can enter is an Alias for Zoo. Is this intentional? I would have thought I can at least enter an Alias for each of the 10 Animals within Zoo.

Another question...I can only seem to enter one Direct Coil Per Rung. Is there anyway around this or is this a sw limitation?

Thank you!

I guess you have looked at the help section, they have 20 or 30 video's that might help you.

damica1 said:

I guess you have looked at the help section, they have 20 or 30 video's that might help you.

Click to expand...

Hello,

No I havn't seen the help section. I see a link for "Learn PLCS" at the top of the website that leads to a bunch of html pages. Is that what you are referrring to? I don't see anything specific to Connected Components Workbench.

Its a fairly simple question though - is it possible to enter an Alias for a member of an array? This seems like a basic function and CCW doesn't seem to allow me to do this.

Thx again!

By help, he may mean You Tube, loads about CCW on there.

From memory, you can't alias within a UTD.

Hardware is OK, CCW is shockingly poor (even taking into account the free version is free!)

I haven't tried all the software packages on offer, but it tends to be a AB thing you can have coils in series or more than 1 per rung (aside TIA >v14 IIRC) but its not a usual thing to allow.

Here is the CCW startup page see the arrow.

Hamdrew said:

Hello and greetings all!

Another question...I can only seem to enter one Direct Coil Per Rung. Is there anyway around this or is this a sw limitation?

Thank you!

Click to expand...

No you can add coils in parallel in workbench software by adding firstly new branch in parallel with the 1st coil and after that put 2nd coil on this branch and so on ...

!

janner_10 said:

By help, he may mean You Tube, loads about CCW on there.

From memory, you can't alias within a UTD.

Hardware is OK, CCW is shockingly poor (even taking into account the free version is free!)

I haven't tried all the software packages on offer, but it tends to be a AB thing you can have coils in series or more than 1 per rung (aside TIA >v14 IIRC) but its not a usual thing to allow.

Click to expand...

That's unfortunate. Seems like a simple feature that would add usability to UDT arrays. Thanks again!

damica1 said:

Here is the CCW startup page see the arrow.

Click to expand...

Yes now I see, thank you!

mahmoud shahien said:

No you can add coils in parallel in workbench software by adding firstly new branch in parallel with the 1st coil and after that put 2nd coil on this branch and so on ...

Click to expand...

Perfect thank you.

I have another question.

I am trying to move a time value into the TMR.PT element of a TON instruction using both the mov and cop commands, neither are working. With mov it says "illegal access to function block instance parameter" and with copy it seems to indicate that the TMR.PT is not readable. TMR is a global variable and TMR.PT appears to have both read/write permissions inside of the TMR properties table. Not sure what the problem is.

Any hints?

Again, many thanks.

I think it was mentioned already - but you can't alias within an array.

It is a really limiting feature, unfortunately.

If a group of bits makes sense, you can set a description for each one and still store them in arrays and have one overall alias for the array. However, if you are in a complex ladder, the 'best' way to do it is make them all tags.

For this reason, you really need to think through what you want to be a global value and what should be local. Try to keep as many variables local as possible.

I don't do super-complex machines, but my general rule of thumb is to think of all global variables as HMI type variables. I usually make a "B", (or "M") tags global and move values in/out of local tags in logic. The tag 'filter' buttons will be your best friend if you get into large projects.

As for your timer question - the micro800 is like Siemens. You need a time value in the format of T#2s or something similar. Try looking up one of the conversion blocks - I think it is called 'Any to time'.

If I recall, it converts to milliseconds by default. So if you convert 2000 to time, it will be 2000mS.

Rson said:

I think it was mentioned already - but you can't alias within an array.

It is a really limiting feature, unfortunately.

If a group of bits makes sense, you can set a description for each one and still store them in arrays and have one overall alias for the array.

For this reason, you really need to think through what you want to be a global value and what should be local. Try to keep as many variables local as possible.

I don't do super-complex machines, but my general rule of thumb is to think of all global variables as HMI type variables. I usually make a "B", (or "M") tags global and move values in/out of local tags in logic. The tag 'filter' buttons will be your best friend if you get into large projects.

As for your timer question - the micro800 is like Siemens. You need a time value in the format of T#2s or something similar. Try looking up one of the conversion blocks - I think it is called 'Any to time'.

If I recall, it converts to milliseconds by default. So if you convert 2000 to time, it will be 2000mS.

Click to expand...

Yes, I was already using the any to time function but I still cannot seem to write directly to the .PT member of a TON timer. Instead I needed to store the number I was going to use in a variable and attach that variable to the TON block when it was instantiated in my ladder code. I guess CCW doesn't expose TON.PT for write operations.

In regards to the array aliasing, sorry I don't understand what you are trying to say.

Lets say I have 10 motors that I want to store the state of something in, whether they are faulted or not lets say. Seems ideal that I could create an array of BOOL's and add an alias for each array element to describe which motor they represent. But we've determined we can't do that. So in the ladder all I see is MOTOR_FAULTED[X], nothing describing what it points to. So the code is basically impossible to read. So I'm forced to create 10 individual base level BOOL variables?

You mentioned this " However, if you are in a complex ladder, the 'best' way to do it is make them all tags.". What does that mean?

Really what I want is a way to group related items and when I refer to those individual members specifically in ladder logic, I want to be able to configure something so that I know what each one is. Is this not possible?

Thanks again