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Trend View is an awesome way to view what's
going on in your PLC system in real time. For example, here we have a single rung that
takes the analog input WX0, compares it to 2500 and if it is greater than 2500 it sets
output coil Y0. We can try that here in our simulator. If I increase the value of WX0,
you can see the rung light up and coil Y0 turns on both here and here in the simulator. Viewing the status is nice, but it sure would
be great if we could see what the analog value is doing. Well, that's where Trend View
comes into play. To view in trend view we just right click
on the rung, and say Trend that instruction -- I'm going to move my simulator out of
the way here so we can see what is going on -- The White trace is the analog value and
the Red trace is that 2500 analog constant. As I change my analog value, you can it bounce
all over the screen and as it crosses the threshold Y0 is turning on and off. That was Trending just the instruction. Let's
go back to our program. This time I want to see both the instruction AND the output coil.
To do that I right click, monitor values, from rung contact and coils to Trend View.
Now the Trend view has a split window. Analog values are here, digital values are here,
but the result is the same. If I play with my analog value, whenever it
crosses the red line, sure enough, I see Y0 in this lower window go active. If you wait long enough, things will scroll
off the end of the screen. What do you do then? Well, if you hit this History Button,
you get a scroll bar that allows you to scroll back through your entire trend. Once you have
done that, on the time scale you can simply crank that up and go take a really, really
close look at exactly what your PLC system is doing. You can record the Trend View and you can
Export it so you can view it in another program like a spreadsheet. The options button lets you change the Trace
order, trace colors ... which allows you to fully customize the trend view. Here's another example -- we have a rotating
claw and we want to know how long it takes to get from one position to the next. Over here you can see I have all the stages
of the program code block outlined in the Data View. All I have to do is right click,
Trend All, and here is my Trend Plot for that code block. If I activate the Wrist Rotation,
I can see how long it takes for the move to complete. As you can see, Trend view is an incredibly
powerful, yet easy and intuitive way to view just about anything you could want to monitor
on your PLC. Inputs, outputs, stage bits, control bits ... anything can be viewed in
Tend View. Be sure to check out the other videos in this
series for more ways to get up and running quickly with the DoMore PLC. And as always, send us any comments or suggestions
you may have on these videos -- we appreciate the feedback. Spend Less. Do More. From Automation Direct
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