DirectSOFT 6 Programming help, PLEASE?

[elfmanp]

I'm hurting here and really need help.

I have an old machine running a AutomationDirect PLC 405. I have a data collection system that is successfully gathering data from this PLC, and from the KEPWare OPC Server I have been able to gleam from the KEP tags the various PLC Memory addresses. Many appear in DirectSOFT XRef View and in the Ladder. However, there are a range of tags -> addresses that do not appear in the XRef, or in the Ladder - I have tried multiple times to search for these tags, but cannot find any of them (V4120-V4133, V4140-V4153, and V4160-V4173) Many of these are updating on the Data Collection, but I cannot figure out how the PLC is interacting with these memory addresses - turns out at least a couple of them are swapped and I need to make sure the numbers are good in the PLC. I am relatively new to DirectSOFT 6 and AutomationDirect hardware in general. Please, help?

There are 961 rungs in the one ladder program. Yes, I drew the short straw.

 

[OkiePC]

I feel your pain. I have one customer with a plant controlled by a DL-405 and it communicates with a DL-250 via radio modem which is networked to about a dozen other remote stations and all the data gets pumped into this main PLC.

I actually had that file opened earlier since we are going to add another station to that system in the near future. Now I can't get Directsoft to run...might need to reboot.

Some V memory might be written by external devices, some might be taken up by analog cards. Some of that is prescribed, and some is configurable. I am not greatly experienced with these controllers, but if you can zip and attach your project, some of the forum members here are really good with Directsoft and can probably help you nail it down.

 

[markesys]

It's possible that the registers are being written via an indirect (indexed) store. In DirectLogic, this is an OUTX instruction. Another possibility is that remote I/O is being used. This is updated asynchronously, and is controlled by values in special V-memory locations in the range of V37700-V37737. Check out the manual (free PDF download from Automation Direct) around page 5-66 for the OUTX instruction, and around pages 4-15 to 4-17 for the remote I/O configuration.

 

[elfmanp]

Here is a ZIP file of the Project.

 

[OkiePC]

I am not seeing anything obvious either. The documentation for those addresses in question does appear to be completed, but where the data comes from is not clear. I would search for something in the data collection system or other external device writing to those locations. There is one FILL instruction that looks like it would include those registers (it has a span of 127 addresses starting at V4001). It looks like it takes the value in V4000 and fills addresses V4001 through V4177 (if my octal counting is right). V4000 is forced to zero, so that rung just clears all the reject counters.

 

[markesys]

I agree with OkiePC that it seems to be something external poking values in, because other than the clear operation at the end of the ladder, I didn't find anything that wrote to those registers either.

It seems a bit strange, though, in that I would expect registers labeled as a "Reject Count Array" (the label of V4177) to be incremented by logic in the ladder, not by some external device.
~~
Mark Moulding

 

[elfmanp]

Follow-up: Our data collection system and how it is tied to this PLC is a freakin' mess! Turns out there are tags setup on our ADC that look at these 'missing' addresses, but those tags aren't used in the ADC - no, I cannot explain why other than the guy who set this all up no longer works here, but is somewhat notorious for stuff like this. The tags that are actively being updated in the Ladder Logic are what is actively used in the ADC, but their names don't really indicate what they are being used for - so thus, my confusion.

Final Word: There doesn't appear to be any funky stuff going on in the PLC - just lots of spaghetti and BassAckwards naming and programming! Now I get the pleasure of trying to clean it up!

 

[elfmanp]

Oh, and thanks much for all the help and suggestions. Always helpful!