Adding Modules in XG5000 - LS Electric XGB PLC from AutomationDirect

Once we have established a project it is time to add any expansion modules we are using. This can be done automatically if we are connected to the CPU from the software, or manually. To automatically add modules, we must be online with the CPU. Once we are online with the CPU, we must also put the CPU into stop mode. This requires the mode switch to be in the “stop” position and stop mode to be selected in the software. Once we are in stop mode we can go to the “I/O Information” screen. To get there we go to “Online > System Diagnostics > I/O Information.” This then opens the I/O Information pop-up screen. From here we can click on the “I/O Sync” button to read the I/O currently attached to the CPU. The software warns us that any offline I/O parameters will be overwritten by the new I/O configuration. To perform this same task manually, we will instead go to the “I/O Parameter” screen. To get there, we will go to the project browser on the left side of the screen and double click on “I/O Parameter.” A new window opens with the I/O Parameter screen and a graphic of our PLC, including a list of all currently applied expansion modules. The CPU may use up slot 0 and slot 1 for it’s on-board I/O and motion controller depending on your CPU part number. We can start manually adding expansion modules in slots 2 through 8. To do so, we will click on the drop-down menu of the next available slot and select the desired expansion module from the module tree that appears. Once we have done this for all attached modules we click “Apply.” This will apply the changes, and the PLC will warn us that new variables and comments will be assigned to accommodate any modules added. It then shows us the new variables and comments to be added, what memory types and direct addresses they will receive, and gives us the opportunity to customize them to our application. Once we select “OK” we have added the modules to our project and are ready to download the new configuration to our CPU.