GE Cimplicity Machine Edition State Logic Error

[Chris Mosley]

Hello All,
I am using Cimplicity Machine Edition (TM) v4.50 Build 3173 and programming using State Logic, I have configured a CPX935.
I have a single Task called "Alarm_Monitoring". In this task there are several states, one of which is "Monitor_Alarms", this state contains the following statement:
If Reactor_Temperature is greater Maximum_Temperature, then go E_Stop State
Upon validating I get the following error:
Error 8911: Error in conditional at "value"
Seconds keyword is missing in if statement or synonyms of if.
Removing the keyword stop has no impact and the same errors are generated, however, replacing "greater" with ">" generates an addition error:
Error 8933: Undeclared variable : "maximum_temperature"
Although the variable "Maximum_Temperature" is clearly defined in the variable tab of the navigator.
Any feed back on what is causing these errors and how to fix them will be greatly appreciated.
The statement after changing it that causes 2 errors is:
If Reactor_Temperature > Maximum_Temperature, then go E_Stop State.
Thanks in advance for your help.
Regards,
Chris Mosley

 

[RussB]

What do you get when you use:
If Maximum_Temperature is Less Than the Reactor_Temperature, then go to the E_Stop State.
Don't forget the "." period as in example 1 above.

 

[FrancisL]

Speaking from a position of complete ignorance of Cimplicity Machine Edition, does it really need the comma before the 'then'? Is that the right syntax?

 

[Chris Mosley]

Hello Russ and Francis,
Russ to answer your question, I do get the same error whether I put:
If Reactor_Temperature is greater Maximum_Temperature, then go E_Stop State
Or I put:
If Maximum_Temperature is Less Than the Reactor_Temperature, then go to the E_Stop State.
Also thank you for bringing to my attention the fact that a period is required, actually I have that period in my code although I have omitted to put it the text message I put in the forum.
Actually I stumbled into the solution and it is exasperatedly simple.
State Logic does not accept %RXXXXX or %AIYYYY in the reference address of any tags.
As soon as I replaced the offending syntax with the correct syntax BBBB and DDDD per state logic configuration everything worked like a charm sorry for the false alarm and thank you so much for your time and consideration. Cimplicity Machine Edition contains some help on the correct syntax when using State Logic, my only excuse is that I have already worked with GE PLC and %RXXXX as well as %AIYYYY are so common and widespread the thought did not cross my mind that in state logic that same syntax I have used in Ladder Logic will not work in state Logic
Francis to answer your question yes the comma makes no difference please reference the Cimplicity Machine Edition help on “State Logic Grammatical Rules”.
Thank you so much for your time and consideration I have included whatever I found and that seemed to have corrected the problem in this article above please see it for more details.

Thanks to all and regards,

Chris Mosley

 

[RussB]

Just a note for anyone who may be interested.
The GEIP StateLogic was developed by Adatek as a "Free text" programming language. It was a cool idea but never took off. With this "StateLogic" one could write a proper and detailed sequence of operations for a process or machine in the form of sentences and paragraphs. One could take this SEO and define each word to be a Filler Word which is used just for readability by humans, or Key words which had actions like "ON" and Variables of course. Then there are Synonyms to Key words such as Close, which would be a pointer to "ON". Each sentence is called a 'State or Statement' each paragraph a 'Task', Tasks can operate in parallel with each other.
Anyway it was great for smaller systems but there are difficulties with large complex processes where there are many things going on simultaneously. These problems are not necessarily because of poor design of the State Engine, but us programmers needed to think about how we wrote these StateLogic programs a little differently, most of the programs that I have seen did not take full advantage of the system and attempted to make StateLogic work like Ladder logic. This and the fact that GEIP never enhanced it to take advantage of the modern processors and larger RAM capabilities has kind of killed this form of programming.

 

[Steve Bailey]

When I showed it to customers I would tell them that when writing your code in State Logic a line in the control program could be, "When Photocell_101 is blocked, Stop Conveyor_101". The thing that sticks in my memory was one engineer's reaction to it. "Whatever you do, don't show this to my boss", he said. "He'll think he can write control programs!"

 

[RussB]

Steve, do you think that part of the reason it was not well received by Control Engineers is that it was perceived to make programming too easy?
Don't mean to hijack this thread, BTW there is a solution in post #4.

 

[Steve Bailey]

No, I think it was another example of an intriguing idea that didn't offer enough of a benefit over what was already available to justify the time and expense of its learning curve. I think of it as being in the same group of "game changers" as Steeplechase and Flo-Pro.