Reference Item names in Equipment editor?

Guys, I hope i explained this well enough, but I suggested it here
https://citectscada.ideas.aha.io/ideas/SCADA-I-45

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who would like to see this! If you haave any input on my idea, I'm all ears. I can edit/update it right?

I've been an HMI developer for a decade now. One of my biggest gripes about alot of these HMI platforms is having to maintain a tag database when using the ControlLogix platform. There are commands that can be sent to the controller to list all UDT's, tags, data and query everything. I had a 17 year old intern write a python script that did just this. He had a Raspberry Pi that could give me a complete taglist from a running controller. 

I groan whenever the job requires Citect, Wonderware, iFix, etc...any one of these means hours spent building and maintaining a tag database. Hours that could be used programming. Whereas FactoryTalk or WinCC can just read what's in the controller and use it. I know some magic happens behind the scenes and a database still exists, but its near transparent. If I have a trouble call in the middle of the night, or the customer decides they want to add a few things to a screen, its easy to talk them through one of the non DB based programs. Generally they're happy and the issue is resolved in minutes. But if it's one of the aforementioned programs, now I have to either go onsite, or begin the process of attempting to get VPN access.

Now it makes sense in a memory addressed PLC to have a tag database, like Ge, AutomationDirect, or the old PLC/SLC5 series. 

If we are stuck using it, I'd like to see it happen as painless as possible. This would def be a step in the right direction. 

Based on what the equipment editor does, I wonder if it would be possible to write an XLST transform to convert a ControlLogix UDT L5k export into something Citect's equipment editor would understand. That would skip all of this. 

Nick, regarding your last statement, I wrote a converter that does this the opposite way. It's takes in both the variable tags and the equipment exported out of the Citect IDE and converts them to a UDT (.L5X file). The only prerequisite is that you'd need to add common prefix in the address field like you would if you referenced a tag structure. Then all you need to do in the PLC is import the UDT, create one tag of that type and all of the Citect tags are in the PLC.

We needed this because we build the HMI first, that defines the logic functions and features. We also use nothing but the equipment model so it's easy to maintain. It's also helpful if you've got several PLC vendors, can just send them the UDT for import and tag creation.

There is work in the PLC, but I just use Excel to build a ST routine to moves the data, then copy/paste into the PLC.

There are downfalls to this approach, such as if you need to update the UDT, must do that off line to import/overwrite, and it will not save any tuning or setpoint values. But we have a workaround the the later. 

Chris,

Interesting. We've always done it completely backwards of you. The first thing I thought of was yeah, if you update a UDT you have to redownload to the PLC. Altho, i've never used excel to build an ST, but now I'm going to try

Thanks for the breadcrumb!

-Nick

Chris,

Interesting. We've always done it completely backwards of you. The first thing I thought of was yeah, if you update a UDT you have to redownload to the PLC. Altho, i've never used excel to build an ST, but now I'm going to try

Thanks for the breadcrumb!

-Nick