Siemens V13 Array Commenting

[jagster21]

Hey everyone,

I'm writing a program in TIA Portal V13.

I have an array of a UDT I've made with 500 members. I'm finding I am unable to put anything in the comment box on the individual array members. Is there any suggestions as to how to do this?

 

[mk42]

If you don't need indirect addressing, you can create it as a Struct of lots of instances of the UDT, instead of as an array. That should allow you to have a unique comment for each unique UDT instance.

If you DO need the indirect addressing, then there aren't really any good solutions. You can use pointers in STL combined with the method above, you can document the data in the code instead.

We've been asking to be able to do what you want for years, hasn't happened yet. I'm not sure if it just isn't the Germany way, or if there is some bigger reason.

 

[janner_10]

It's certainly annoying you can't. You also can't with AB either, so i'm not sure if its a technical thing.

 

[jagster21]

Yeah, I do need indirect addressing for this.

And Janner, you actually can in rockwell.

Hopefully Siemens makes this simple feature soon!

 

[mk42]

Yeah, I do need indirect addressing for this.

What are you trying to do, where you need indirect addressing and specific comments? There is often a way to structure the Siemens code differently so that it isn't necessary.

Are you creating alarm messages? If so, the Program Alarm block could be beneficial. The system handles all the alarm messages, and you don't need a giant array of text.

 

[jagster21]

We use indirect addressing to float through all 500 alarms and find the ones that are critical (as per the UDT) and which activate lamps, which are active.

Historically, having them commented out makes it much easier to troubleshoot if we have an alarm that is constantly on and to develop on-site additional alarms.

 

[Lare]

You are looping 0..500 UDT types.
Thinking that you can divide Data to 3 different DB-blocks and looping them instead of one. That way you can give different comments for every alarm.

 

[m_turk]

I'd do it with a small FB "CheckAlarm", doing everything you have to do to your alarm, with status inputs, all your alarm settings in static, and lamps as outputs.
Then, a big FB "Alarms", in SCL, where I'd call each "CheckAlarm" as multiple instance, with declared inputs, and outputs..

It seems much to write when you ahave 500 of them, but excel is a great help with that, and it is as clean and debuggable as can be for later..

 

[janner_10]

Yeah, I do need indirect addressing for this.

And Janner, you actually can in rockwell.

Hopefully Siemens makes this simple feature soon!

You are of course, perfectly correct. I should read better and thought you meant just an array.