Studio 5000 best practice for multiple inputs controlling one output.

[dave948]

Compactlogix controller, program has 28 conveyors that use TON's to start the conveyors. The TT sounds a warning horn during start and the DN starts the motor. The ladder line with the horn OTE has 32 (28 conveyors plus HMI and physical) XIC's on parallel rungs. Is there a cleaner way to do the same thing? Would alias tags be a better option?

Thanks.

 

[Operaghost]

Without seeing it, it actually sounds pretty clean as it is. Anything we do will potentially make it harder to interpret. If you can post a screenshot, we might be able to offer something more specific.

OG

 

[plvlce]

You might be able to make it a little nicer looking by grouping some of the conveyors in some sensible fashion and having them in parallel turn on an intermediate bit which is then checked in the horn OTE rung. This would reduce the number of XIC on that rung by shifting some of them to another rung.

You could add a branch to the rungs with the timers where the TT turn on a different bit of a word, eg conveyor 1 TT has an OTE for ConveyorStart.0, conveyor 2 TT has an OTE for ConveyorStart.1, conveyor 3 TT has an OTE for ConveyorStart.2 etc... then instead of XICing each bit you can just check if ConveyorStart>0. This would reduce readability slightly thouh as it would be difficult to tell from the horn rung which conveyor was causing it to sound (you'd have to scroll up and check which TON was running).

 

[James Mcquade]

Please do the following for maintenance.
Create several rungs of ladder logic that can be seen on the pc screen.
then create a final rung for the output.
Having to scroll down 15 branches on a screen to see something does no one any good when the issue is at the top of the rung
and is impossible to debug on a laptop.
james

 

[OkiePC]

One thing you could do to allow all the contacts to be seen on a single monitor is to put them (XIO) in series to an internal bit and then use the XIO of that bit to drive the horn.

 

[drbitboy]

One thing you could do to allow all the contacts to be seen on a single monitor is to put them (XIO) in series to an internal bit and then use the XIO of that bit to drive the horn.

De Morgan's Laws

 

[robertmee]

One thing you could do to allow all the contacts to be seen on a single monitor is to put them (XIO) in series to an internal bit and then use the XIO of that bit to drive the horn.

This

 

[parky]

Not sure what the actual process is it could be a requirement for the alarm to be on a short time each conveyor is going to start or is it a alarm before the sequence start of all the conveyors, in one I did I used one timer then use compares for example
Timer value > 0 & Less than 10 sound alarm
Timer value > 10 start conveyor 1
Timer value > 15 start conveyor 2
.... And so on.

 

[durallymax]

Compactlogix controller, program has 28 conveyors that use TON's to start the conveyors. The TT sounds a warning horn during start and the DN starts the motor. The ladder line with the horn OTE has 32 (28 conveyors plus HMI and physical) XIC's on parallel rungs. Is there a cleaner way to do the same thing? Would alias tags be a better option?

Thanks.

"Cleaner" is subjective, you can add a sub-rung at each TON to an OTE with a unique bit of a DINT. Then a GT (or whatever the AB version is) 0 for that DINT on the timer rung. You end up just moving all of the sub-rungs to the timer rungs and accomplish little, plus you'll now need to examine the bits to know what is making the timer run, but it's an option. Other options if they're arrayed, but these options just trade screen space for readability.

 

[padees]

If the OP post's more info, that could reduce speculation.

I have a few thoughts of my own, but it would be a waste of time, at this point.

 

[James Mcquade]

OkiePC,

you are correct, you can do this, but when you have 2 screens of series contacts, it's still a lot to try to debug.
i am talking 127 contacts, limit, compare instructions on one rung.
the company would not let me modify the program.
james