Software Designations & Revisions

Hi All,

Prompted to post this from an earlier posting by "plcbuddy" regarding the wrong downloading of software/programs into a plc.
I am wondering how we all "Designate" or "File" our software. For example as a machine builder we usually have a project/machine code to utilise as a descriptive name to save our software under, but for some PLC manufacturers they don't allow long filenames i.e. SIEMENS. I may have a PLC file saved as 03MIL04_AutoFeed_V1.0 and the HMI file saved within if possible or 03MIL04_AutoFeed_E600_V1.2. for Simatic I tend to have to shorten the names 03MIL04_1 etcetc. Now this is only a query but for some reason when I write software code I do so on my desktop, which in turn is linked to the server so when I go on site I may copy the software onto my notebook as the same filename update it and maybe save under same revision. THis obviously is bad practice but it has happened on occasion where the autosave feature has kicked in hence I may carry 2 x copies of PLC/HMI same name, different code.

Any ideas on the subject??


Mylo

Keep the original on a floppy. If the autosave restamps your edits, you have the true original on separate media. Turn off the auto save if possible. If you are limited to 8 characters then you usually can't make descriptive file names. Use some sort of coding system where the last 3 or 4 digits are an incremental serial nummber like 0000, 0001 and so. Keep a separate spreadsheet with the file names where using other columns you can put descriptive information like who edited it, date and time edited, what was changed, job location, job number and tool number.