CompactLogix with Weintek MT8092XE

jsorick

Member
Join Date
Jul 2019
Location
Co. Galway
Posts
8
Hi, I have an application where I am using a USB Barcode scanner connected to the MT8092XE, and I want to copy the scanned information into a string tag in the PLC. The scanner is working fine with the HMI. The issue is writing to the PLC tag. Using the data transfer function in Easybuilder I can move the Barcode data to an HMI tag or memory location, but it does not seem to work sending it to the PLC. When selecting the PLC tag the software will only allow SINT tags to be selected - Barcode_Scan.DATA[0] for example. When the transfer executes only every other character is written to the PLC tag so if the scanner read 1896859WO, the tag in the PLC gets 1980O. Any ideas on what is could be causing this would be greatly appreciated!

Best Regards,
John
 
The scanner is a Honeywell 1300G-1 (Hyperion 1300G). There is not an option to set it up for 16 bit-unicode in the user manual, and according to a post on Honeywell's support website this model does not support that. It is operating in whatever mode it powers up in as I did not do anything to configure it.
 
When the transfer executes only every other character is written to the PLC tag so if the scanner read 1896859WO, the tag in the PLC gets 1980O.


Was that meant to be 1989O?


Was that an actual transfer or just an example of random characters demonstrating every other character for the post?



What is the communication link between the Weintek and the CompactLogix? Ethernet/IP? RS-232?
 
The comm link is Ethernet/IP.

The example that I used in the original post is an actual scan and transfer, in this case a work order number. What I am doing is having a machine operator scan several items (barcodes) from a work order router on the shop floor. This information is then sent to a database to record machine and production information. Based on the trailing characters the PLC determines what was scanned and writes it to the appropriate PLC tag.
 
I think you have situation here with Low Endian and Big Endian format mismatched, and that you need to read five consecutive words (or six).
 
goghie, I had to look that up too see what it was, and then I checked the transfer setup. I can set the number of words it reads and I tried it set at 10, 20 and even 40 with no change.
 
The example that I used in the original post is an actual scan and transfer, in this case a work order number.


Then you have possibly bigger problems than every-other character being transferred: there is no 0 (zero) in the original string; so how did a zero get into the PLC?
 
okay then.


I wonder if the string is stored in 16-bit words in the HMI, or perhaps the data transfer function assumes, and increments, by words.
 
perhaps the data transfer function assumes, and increments, by words.

Looking at the manual, it seems global time-based data transfer has the option of transfer by # of bits while the other types (global bit-trigger & per-page) only offer word-based addressing.

I suspect drbitboy is correct about the source of the issue, and what may be going on is it is writing a sixteen bit word (two characters), but then incrementing only eight bits (to the next position in the SINT array) so the second character gets overwritten by the first character of the next 16-bit word.

EDIT: Or change from UTF-8 to Unicode. That seems like it should fix things.
 
Last edited:
Hi, drbitboy was correct about the barcode scan data being stored in 16 bit words. The Unicode / UTF-8 setting only seems to apply to displaying an ASCII object tag from the PLC on the HMI, not to when writing to a PLC tag in the manner I wanted to. The barcode data is automatically stored in a word array. What I was able to do was copy the data to another array that I could then access using a macro to read it into a byte array and then write that to the PLC. There is probably an easier way to do get the same result, but this works. Thanks for all the help!
 

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