C-more Micro HMI TAG Database for PLCs from AutomationDirect

The C-More Micro uses a TAG Name Database to help you manage and keep track of the TAGs you define. A “TAG” is just a name for a memory location on a device. Objects like pushbuttons write values to the TAGs which can be located on a PLC, another device or even internally on the C-more Micro. In this simple example, we have three oven pushbuttons which enable ovens which are really just writing values to TAG values down here on this PLC. We also have a numeric display which is monitoring this temperature TAG on the PLC. If I modify the temperature TAG, then that gets reflected in the numeric display. Likewise, if I press a button - that changes the TAG down on the PLC. Let’s see how this looks in the TAG database. From within the project you can select the TAG Name Database under the Navigation Window’s Function Tab right here, or from the Database menu here. In this dialog, you can filter the display of TAGS by device – maybe you just want to show the internal TAGs – that’s the TAGs local to the C-More Micro Panel – or do you want to show the TGs that are specific to a given device. We’ll choose ALL for right now. You can display System TAGs if you want to – these are TAGs that are unique to the C-More Panel that allow us some special features – you can even highlight those if you want to. You can also choose to display internal TAGs or not and to highlight them. AND you can highlight unused TAGs – which is a real quick way to find out if you have any extra TAGs in your project. For example – we see that OVEN3 is unused but we have an OVEN3 pushbutton. So that tells me there is probably an issue with my project somewhere that I need to go debug. Let’s go take a quick look at that … OVEN 3 –sure enough – OVEN3 is using OVEN2’s TAG. We need to fix that, assign OVEN 3 to that. Pop back into our TAG Name Database, and now we can see that OVEN3 is not highlighted anymore but we’re still not using the pressure TAG. That’s OK. To create a TAG, click on the ADD… Choose the device the TAG will be applied to, give it a name, specify the data type and where it is going to be located on the PLC. And say ADD. You can quickly add more and more TAGs this way – you can also quickly scroll through the existing TAGs using the arrow keys right here. You can go straight to the beginning, straight to the end, and even add a new TAG if you want to. Note that if you create an internal TAG, you no longer need to specify a memory address. When you are done editing or creating TAGs just hit close and you are back in the TAG name database. The “Fill Down” button is handy is you have a sequence of TAGs. Suppose we wanted to add some more OVEN TAGs for example – just hit FILL DOWN and it automatically adds TAGs with an index appended. Note that this only works for external TAGs – not internal C-More Micro TAGS because there is no internal memory address to increment with the internal TAGs. All TAGs in your project are logged in this database so you always have the ability to quickly and easily manage your TAGs. Check out the video on importing and exporting tags to see how to take advantage of tags from other projects and how to add large quantities of tags quickly. That’s all there is for this video – be sure to check out the other videos in this series. And as always, please send us any topics you would like to see covered – or - any other comments for that matter – we appreciate the feedback!