User Key Logix Pro 500 Plc Simulator 107 WORK
Joseph
For one thing the controllers that you can program with this software are very inexpensive. The controllers are the Micro800 series controllers from Rockwell Automation Allen Bradley. And I believe they are all available for less than $1,000.
Many of the controllers come with built-in IO which is another cool feature that saves money and configuration work. so4 smaller automation projects the CCW software and the associated Micro 800 controllers are often a great fit.
One thing that is disappointing about the software is it looks quite a bit different from the rslogix software whether it's Studio 5000 or RSLogix 500 or Micro, all of those software packages have a similar look and feel in the ladder logic.
But regardless this is a great free software package that you can use to not only learn to program plc's on your own time but also to program inexpensive controllers for practice at home or even to control machines and equipment in a plant. The Micro800 controllers are really nice in a lot of ways and can be used alongside or instead of some of the more powerful PLC controllers.
(By the way, if you like videos like this, be sure to check out our membership called myPLCtraining Academy that is full of tutorial and theory style videos to help you become a confident PLC programmer)
Hey guys, Stephen Gates here from my PLC, training.com with another video to help you become a confident PLC programmer. And this week's lesson and video, which we'll continue this theme throughout the month of April, is about connected components workbench and this is a Rockwell automation product and it's a PLC programming package software that is actually free. The standard version is free. And so I thought this would be really useful to a lot of my audience and who are trying to learn PLCs on their own and need some help. I'm working on it on their own time without having to buy expensive software. So I've covered connected components, work bench in another video and introduction to it, how to set up a new project and so on. So I'm going to skip some of that in this video. If you want to learn more about setting up a new project in CCW as we'll call it from now on, there is a link in the description below that will take you to that video.
So check that out if you haven't seen it already. So in this video we are going to explore the built in simulation options that are in CCW that lets you emulate a controller right from within the programming software. So here we are inside CCW right now.
And again, if you're new to CCW, I'd recommend you check out that previous video I made in the description below because it talks about setting up a new project. So we're going to start out with an existing project here in this video and add some simple logic and then we'll see how it works. Using the, the simulator.
And the first thing I'm going to do here is add two rungs. Okay. So we have a total of three rungs. Now I prefer to use the Logix theme, which doesn't do much except change the names of the instructions to look more like RS logic software. So you can see the theme here. You have default, which gives you the instructions. They look a little different. Direct coil, reverse coil output latch. They work the same and they do the same things pretty much. We'll look at timers. I think the timers are a little bit different in both cases. But what I like about Logix is it's what I'm used to, can see the coil. It's like an output, energize output de-energize which does not exist in RSLogix. But you get the idea and then latch bits, output, latch, output, unlatch, and the examine if closed. Examine if open . So we're going to use the Logix theme. That's what I prefer.
So we will add an XIO and a timer to this first room. So let's scroll over till we find timers/counters and we're going to use TON. So again, if you're using the default theme, it may be called something else. Let's just see what that is out of curiosity. Okay, so it looks like it's called the same thing. So that's good. Stick with Logix here. Okay, so we're going to add a ton there. And then on this next rung, we are going to add a XIC and an OTE. Now before we address anything, let's just talk about what we're going to do with this. So we're going to monitor, this'll be an input and we're going to add a delay onto it with the timer. So if this input drops out, so to speak, the contact closes, because it's an, it's a basically a normally closed contact.
So when de-energize the contact closes timer will start, it's gonna trigger this normally open contact, which will then trigger our coil and turn on an output. So the input dropping out starts the timer, which then turns on the input after the preset time is reached. Okay, so we'll build it out from here. So for this first rung, we need to add a variable here to this instruction. And a variable is just a tag. That's just what they call it here in CCW is tag. So let's, okay, so they, they can remember here, I think if I double click the actual instruction, there we go. As you can see, I'm not as comfortable with CCW as with the RSLogix and Studio 5000 software. But if you poke around, it's not too difficult to figure out. So the variable selector is coming up here.
And what we want is I/O because we are going to be using the inputs and outputs from the micro eight 50 controller. And so I actually have already set up an alias for one of these outputs. So this is discrete output DO:00 so that's our output. Let's find our inputs. Okay, here's where discrete input: DI:00 is. So this is the guy I want. So we're going to say basically when this becomes true, so when the input turns off, there's an active alarm. Okay?
So then with the timer, it's already given us a timer variable there. So what we need to do is to set up a preset time. So to do that you can add a variable there or ah, let's see, I can do this. There we go. So then you can actually just type a time in there. So if you type T#2, seconds for our example here so S, that will get the timer to start timing and then it will take two seconds to complete the timing. Okay, so that rung is done.
Now our next rung we want to turn on when this timer output completes. So we could have actually just skipped this second rung and just put this OTE here. But if you're familiar with RSLogix and Studio 5000 software, a timer needs to be the last thing on your rung. And C, you would use the done bit of the timer to activate something on another room. So we're, we're kind of trying to emulate that here.
Okay. So next we need to address this instruction, which like I said is going to be like the Done Bit from this timer. So we'll use this cubit cause there is no done bit, but the cubit in CCW works the same as the done bit in RSLogix software. So double click and we'll go to global variables and we're going to search for time, see if that gives us anything.
TON Nope. Let's see if we can find them here. Maybe system variables. So there it is in the local variables. It's TON one. So this is the guy we want. And then we have to put dot Q to address that done bit or the cubit. Okay. So now on our output, we will address this OTE to one of our physical outputs. On the controller. So again, I've aliased alarm light two discreet output 00. So we'll double click that. Okay. And there's our logic, simple as that. So now we're ready to build the project and make sure there's no errors. So that's this button up here and I like to click on this error list and make sure there's nothing there. You can click on the output as well. Build started. Looks like it may be still working on the build her list.
Okay, so the build project is completed. There are zero errors, zero warnings, zero errors, zero warnings, that's a good thing. And hear my son laughing in the background, which is always a great thing.
And it's still working. It takes, it takes a few minutes to build the project. So what we're going to do after that's done is we're going to bring up the simulator and we're going to start walking through that process, which is what you really will get out of this video. Build succeeded. That's what I wanted to see. One succeeded, zero failed. Okay. And these notifications are very, very annoying. Okay. So the next step is to darter simulator. So there's really four steps to getting your project in the simulator and testing it out.
So those steps are to make sure your controller for the project is a Micro850 SIM, and that is this number here, Micro850 SIM, and there's a specific catalog ID for that controller. So if you don't have that set up as your controller what you can do, obviously, if you're not sure, just click properties here, but what you can do is change controller here and this'll bring up the controller that you're using and the controller that you want to change it to. So current, and then you can change it to whatever. There's a whole list of controller options here. So if yours is not already this controller, you'll see that as an option in this list, assuming that you have version 12 of CCW. That's an important distinction. Not all the versions of CCW have the simulator that I know of. So just be aware of that. And so it's, you know, hopefully bring up the about window there.
Okay. So this finally came up from the help and about button there. And we can see that I've got version 12.0 0.0 standard edition. So just make sure that you have at least version 12. And that way you'll, you'll have to the simulator. Okay, so the four steps to run a project on the simulator are number one, make sure your controller is the Micro850 Sim, like I said, number two, start the Micro800 simulator of, show you that in a second. Number three, sync your module configuration with the simulator. And number four, download a project to the simulator. Like you would a regular controller. Okay, so we've figured out step one, make sure we've got the 850SIM controller set up. So step two is to start the Micro800 simulator, which can be done with this button here. So click that button and it's going to bring up a separate window that looks like very similar to this Micro 800 controller picture and with the fuse few controls. So failed to launch simulator application. There we go. So it took a minute, but it did come up. Okay.
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