S7 - viewing GRAPH without license.

[RMA]

I'm trying to check out my program using PLCSim and because of the size of the project everything runs pretty slowly. So in order to keep track of where the program's got to I wanted to monitor the main part of the program in GRAPH. When I click on the "spectacles" button to start the monitoring, I get the Nag Screen, but no subsequent error message, however the display never goes live (no nice little green or red blobs filling the Steps).

I have used this Laptop for monitoring things over Ethernet before but unfortunately, I can't remember definitely whether or not I've monitored a GRAPH program with it. There is an S7 license on board and monitoring in the STL/LAD/FBD editor works fine. Unfortunately the GRAPH license is on the machine which has been delivered out to the customer - 500 km away. Since they don't have anybody fluent in Step7, there's no possibility of doing a manual license transfer (that's tricky enough even when you (think you) know what you're doing!

Does anybody know for sure whether I should be able to monitor a GRAPH program without a license, or is this a PLCSim problem?

[RMA]

I suddenly remembered that we have the WinAC Slotcard system over in the test hall driving the capacitor bank for the medium power Laser system, so I went over and had a look.

On that system, without license, I can monitor the GRAPH program without any problem - looks like it's another PLCSim funny, pity!

[Paulus]

Originally Posted by RMA

- looks like it's another PLCSim funny, pity!

Shouldn't that be a PLC Symphony !!!

[JesperMP]

I suppose that the program runs as intended, only you cannot see it online.

I find it odd that it is like that. STEP7 must "look" at addresses in the PLC in order to update the online view. How can it be different for a real CPU and PLCSIM ?

Is it not because the online and offline blocks have become unsyncronised ? Are the spectacles greyed out ? Sometimes STEP7 thinks that the blocks are syncronised and the spectacles are not greyed out, but when you try to go online it discovers that they are not syncronised. In that case you get an error message, and thats not what you see.

I would forward the problem to Siemens support.

[RMA]

No the spectacle button works as you would expect (i.e. it lets itself be "pressed down". The STL/LAD/FBD editor allows monitoring without any problems, it's only GRAPH that won't play ball. On top of that, the GRAPH programs have been stable for months now and I have no problem monitoring on the 317.

Just in case, I've got the consistency check running as I write this, so we'll see what it throws up. I guess I could send a report to Siemens, anyway.

The consistency check takes an age, so I'll come back with and edit when it's finished.

Edit: Consistency check finished, all OK (apart from the usual messages re FB125/DB125 and the FM325-5 S/W.

I've sent a Support Request to Siemens, whether they'll get back to me before I disappear off for two weeks holiday tomorrow lunch time is another question!

[Bratt]

I tried monitoring the S7 Graph sample program "ZEn02_02_S7GRAPH_Wash" that comes with S7Graph.It worked like a charm in Plcsim both with and without a license.

[SimonGoldsworthy]

I know this is a bit obvious, but are you sure the graph block was being called ?

[RMA]

You may have a point there Simon! Since everything else seemed to be working smoothly this time, as opposed to the last time I tried running this project on PLCSim, I assumed (should know better!) that everthing was running properly. Since I had problems with ProTool functions not exexcuting under PLCSim, that would be an explanation.

I'll have to check that out!

[RMA]

I just went back and checked to be sure that GRAPH was running OK and in fact, I should have remembered before, the output Bits that are driven by GRAPH are being set in PLCSim OK, so GRAPH is definitely running.

So I went back into GRAPH and switched on the monitoring and this time it worked!

There's definitely something funny going on here, but I'm not sure what it is. The first time I tried running this project on the Laptop a couple of weeks back the main Module selection screen was taking 40 secs to update - I timed it for a previous Thread! Now it's updating in about 3 seconds - somethings changed, but I've no idea what!