SLC500 Tags

Hello! I'm sure this has been discussed many times, but I thought I would give it a shot just the same. We recently purchased some used equipment that utilize SLC500's. We did not receive any backup files with the equipment. I was able to upload the ladder using RS Logix 500 but of course no tags were loaded. It has been many years since I last touched a SLC, but if memory serves me correctly, the tags are not held in the PLC, but in a db to be used i n conjunction with the ladder. Am I thinking correctly?

yes.

So we basically don't have any tag info since we didn't receive any program files with the machine?

Correct. Unless you can get an ASCII export from someone who authored the project and still has the full project file structure on their PC, you're SOL!

Story of my life.....

Did you get any electrical prints with the machine? You can cross reference those with the wiring and trace them back to your outputs, which will at least give you a starting point to start defining everything, but I don't envy the task you have in front of you...

Hopefully changes to the program aren't necessary. There's no chance the person who sold you the machine has any computer with a copy of the program still on it?

That's what I'm pursuing now LoganB. It appears this machine went through three phases unfortunately. The original program, then an upgrade that would have required some changes, and lastly some hand-shake additions with supporting conveyor systems and the addition of a new PanelView. All of this was done by separate automation contractors. So the hunt is on!!!

May the force be with you

I think you are referring to user data, there are no tags in SLC5/03 or 5/05's

I deal with this ALOT, and not just on SLC PLC's, I have TI505's, SquareD Symax PLC's, lots of SLC5/03 and SLC5/05's, Direct Logic 06's, SCADAPacks, Siemens Step7's that all have no user data. When we took over this contract the only people that had any programs with user data were competitors and not willing to share.

Its just that its user data NOT tags. Tags are part of the control program. User Data is information ABOUT parts of the control program that is not uploaded to memory.

My suggestion is, go out there to your PLC and start tracing inputs and outputs. If you have a drawing, often the tables will list the end device, the PLC connection and the terminals it is connected too. After pulling an upload you can start labeling your inputs and outputs. Then you can start to make educated guesses about what other XIC's, OTE's, timers and such are by running down what bits trigger them from the raw inputs.

Export the tag information from the PanelView. That will give you somewhat of a head start recreating descriptions for your SLC addresses. Even if there are no descriptions in the Painelview software, if they used meaningful names, those can be brought into RSLogix as symbols. If they didn't use meaningful names, then you can drill into the graphics and manually, tediously cross reference what is used why and type in the comments for each used address.

Once you get that along with the real world I/O commented, you can read between the lines to comment internal addresses.

I cannot count how many times I have had to s**t documentation out of thin air for a SLC or Micrologix.

I fully commented a water plant SLC system in 6 hours recently because I have had way too much practice massaging comments in excel between exports of various HMI/SCADA software and electrical drawings.

OkiePC said:

Export the tag information from the PanelView. That will give you somewhat of a head start recreating descriptions for your SLC addresses. Even if there are no descriptions in the Painelview software, if they used meaningful names, those can be brought into RSLogix as symbols. If they didn't use meaningful names, then you can drill into the graphics and manually, tediously cross reference what is used why and type in the comments for each used address.

Click to expand...

That is, assuming that there is a panelview or HMI associated with the PLC, this is a huge help, or pulling the tag DB from a SCADA and filter the tags in excel based on the device.

6 hours is a really good turn around time. Its usually a full day of documentation for me. But then again the last two that I had to do were SLC 5/03's on turbine compressors with no HMI, just some pushbutton, lights, and selector switch inputs for the controls.

You are lucky its in English (assumption). I have a number of projects at the moment that are poorly or undocumented and all drawings and controllogix tags (where available) are in abreviated French or German (which I don't speak) so I don't even have Google translate to help.

Boy what a headache.

Steve