New to S7 and MP270

NetMan

Member
Join Date
Mar 2004
Location
Illinois
Posts
29
As the title states, I'm new ... real new ... to the Siemens PLC stuff. I'm a die hard A-B programmer. I've been able to "reverse-engineer" much of the S7 program on a German Machine. All the descriptions & documentation is in German. I've been trying to translate to English. Monitoring the S7 program and poking at the buttons on the MP270, I've been able to document ... in English ... much of the program. I've been able to do a small amount of editing ... ie ... added a stack light for machine status. Nothing safety related or changes to the machine's function. So ... I'm trying ... but I just can't seem to get a grip on the "big picture" of interfacing the MP270 and the S7. I know this is gonna sound stupid, but I have no formal S7 training. I'm not going to start writing S7 code from scratch. I just want to be able to look at, and understand this S7 for maintenance and troubleshooting purposes. Here's an example:
I have Protool to examine the MP270 Application
I have IBH Softec to examine the S7 Program

I'm trying to find the "link" between the F1 key on the MP270 and the address (which I cannot find) in the S7 program.

Protool indicates that the F1 to F6 keys are tag'd "tasteF1_F6"
with Type: WORD, Address: MW230 and Elements: 1, I checked each function key:
F1 uses bit 1
F2 uses bit 0
F3 changes to a different screen
F4 uses bit 3
F5 changes to a different screen
F6 uses bit 5

Now ... in the S7 program I cannot or have not been able to find any relation to address MW230 or even M230, as I've seen this "M" address before in the program, but not "MW".
I guess I'm asking ... just how is this relation made? Shedding a little light on this would ... hopefully ... open up the "ahhhhh, I get it" door, thus making my time spent much more productive. There are still issues like how timer values, numerical values, screen changes and the like are handled, but one small step at a time.
Thanks for your input in advance.
Your humble A-B programmer in a Siemens world,
- Tony
 
How have you been looking for any relation to MW320 etc ?
Using the Reference data you can check the Assignment box and you get a list of all I/Q/M/timers/counters with a cross indicating they have been used + indication that a byte/word/double word access is used
 
Don't worry, I haven't formal S7 training too, but it's not a problem.:)
It's normal what you described. Siemens use the same memory area for word, byte and bit addresses. M230.0 occupies LSB of MW230.
 
I've tried searching for M230.1 and get "operand not found". I thought it should be so easy. But it isn't ... or maybe I'm looking in the wrong place.
 
Hi Netman.

I do both AB and S7, so feel free to ask.

I dont know how IBH softec sorts the XREF, but in Siemens own software it is strictly alphabetical.

For example to see all possible accesses to M230.1 (used by F1), you would have to check the following:

M230.1
MB230
MD227 (unlikely, but you never know)
MD228
MD229 (again unlikely)
MD230
MW229 (unlikely)
MW230

In Siemens software, the XREF is NOT sorted nicely to follow the byte number. The "type" comes in and means that first you see all the bit accesses, then the byte accesses, then the Double word accesses and finally the word addresses. It means a lot of scrolling if you want to check just a few addresses.

It is possible that the programmer reserved the bit addresses for future use. That could be the reason why they do not appear in the XREF.
It is also possible (but relatively unlikely) that he accessed the bit addresses indirectly, in which case they do not appear in the XREF.
 
Same with the K1 thru K16 keys on the MP270. I find the tag "tasteK1_K8" is MW236 and find the respective bits for each. When in the S7 program and I search for ... say ... M236.0 I get operand not found. There is a function associated with this key on the machine ... but I'm having trouble finding it.
- Tony
 
Gambrinus was a little off there, M 230.0 is the Least significant bit of the Most significant BYTE of MW230.

MW230 is made up of two bytes, MB230 and MB231.

If the HMI is looking at MW230, then its looking at 16 bits and bit 0 will be M 231.0 and bit 1 will be M 231.1 etc.

EDIT: BIT 8 = M 230.0
 
Also if your really unlucky its done indirectly.


You did say it was engineered in Germany...


Try puting MW230 in a VAT table and watch it as the buttons pressed, it may be quick enough to confirm M 231.0 or M 230.0.


EDIT: If its to quick (1 scan only) then try using a spare flag to capture the press. Even this may not work mind if it turns it off in the program before your capture point.

You could write

L Spare flag
L 0
>I
Jc over

L MW230
T Spare flag

over: nop 0

and put in a number of places to try and catch it
 
Last edited:
NetMan said:
I get operand not found.
Again, IBH may be different from the Siemens software in this respect, but when you search for addresses, only the one block from which you have selected the function is scanned, not all blocks.
There is also a "goto address" function in STEP7, which covers all blocks. Maybe there ís a similar function in IBH.
Try to look in the XREF rather than using the search function.
 
Ahhhh ... now looking at the tag list ... I noticed MW230 is for F1 thru F6 and MW232 is for F7 thru F12. I typo'd a search for M231.0 and found it is located in the machine loader FC as a bit that seems to handle the Auto/Man load operation. This is also the description of the F2 key which has the tag "tasteF1_F6" using bit 0. Does this make sense?
- Tony
 

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