BRX Do-more PLCs Quick Start from AutomationDirect

In this video we will create a simple ladder program, write it to the PLC and run it. By the way, there’s a really great quick start tutorial right here on the start page – this “Make Lights Blink Tutorial - which you can access anytime by clicking on the Start page tab or if you don’t see that tab, go to View >> Start Page and that will bring it right up. For this simple example we have this PLC connected to our computer, and we are going to have this input switch – X0 - enable output LED Y0. Here we go … We want a new project, we’ll give it a name – Let’s call it NewProject. And we want to connect to the PLC we have on our desk, which I am currently using this processor, the one with the Ethernet port, and say OK. Here’s our blank project. We want a normally open contact, driven by the input X0, to drive output Y0. And there’s our simple program. This Yellow bar is telling me I have made changes but I haven’t accepted those yet. So I click on the Accept button, and now I get a green bar. That says I haven’t saved it to disk yet. Let’s go ahead and save it to disk. And we have no bars so that means we are ready to go. Now we want to write this to the PLC, but look, the Write PLC button is grayed out. The reason it is grayed out is we haven’t connected to this PLC yet. So we select PLC, Connect. I haven’t created a Link to this PLC yet – the only one available is the simulator, which we discuss in a separate video – so I’ll say I want to add a link. It says: how are you connected? We’ll I’m using the USB port right now. It brings up a list of all of the processor currently connected to this computer. I only have the one, of course. Note that this number right here is the number that is printed on the label on your Do-more CPU. We’ll give it a name. I can give it a description if I want to. This is the name of the link, by the way, not the project. Give the link a description, and say finish. Now I have my new project link established, so I select that, and Do-more Designer connects to the PLC. It’s asking us what do we want to do? We’ll we want to go on line with the processor, but view the disk based project. You could also go on line and view what is currently on the PLC. This dialog is warning us that we have chosen to go online with the PLC, but our current project is not compatible with the one that is on the PLC. Are we sure we want to go ahead? Yeah, we are. Now that we are connected to the PLC, Do-more Designer recognizes that there are differences between our disk base project and what’s in the PLC. That’s indicated by this blue bar. That’s telling us we need to write this project to the PLC. So here we go. The project has now been downloaded to the PLC, It looks like we are in Program Mode and the switch on the PLC is set to Terminal. If I check the MODE here, I am currently in Program, so I’m going to switch over to Run mode, so I click right there, or I could flip the switch on the PLC. You can see by this indicator down here that we are currently running, and we are ready to go. I’m going to turn on status so we can see what each of these things is doing. If I reach down to the PLC and flip the switch that is driving X0, I see X0 light up, and I see Y0 light up. One of the cool things about the Do-more is you can make a Run Time Edit. That means you can download a program while the PLC is running! Let’s do an example. I’m going to change this contact from X0 to X1. Do-more designer is telling I haven’t accepted those changes yet, so I click accept. Now it’s telling me I haven’t saved them and there are differences between the project and what’s on the PLC. So we’re going save them and then write the new changes down to the PLC. A dialog comes up that says you are about to make a run mode edit. Are you sure you want to continue? What that means is Do-more Designer is going to download this program while the PLC is running and once the download is complete, on the next scan it is going to flip over to the new program. Let’s try it. Say YES. It downloads the program. And boom, just like that the PLC is now up and running with X1 – I’m going to reach down and flip that – controlling Y0. That’s really important to understand. The beauty of that is the machine that is connected to the PLC doesn’t have to pause and wait for a download. Again, the download happens and on the next scan the new code gets implemented and is totally transparent to the rest of your system. Let’s do one more thing: Let’s change this contact from an external input to an internal contact. We need to accept it. Save it and write the Changes to the PLC. Again, we are making a RUN Mode edit. We are actually going to make this change while the PLC is running. Here we go .. it downloads it and we are all set. But now, C0 is in charge of Y0. How do I change that? I just bring up the Data View, we want to monitor C0 in the Data View and we want to be able to edit that so we click on the edit button. To change the Status of C0, I just double click on the on or the off buttons here. Double click on ON – it asks me if I am sure I want to do this – yes I am and please don’t ask me again. And C0 turns on. Double click again and C0 turns off. The reason for the Double Click is you may want to turn this one on, another one on, another ne on and then all at once write those changes to the PLC. So a single click sets things up, and then this button would write those out. If you have a single edit you want to write out you would click on this button and to clear everything you click on that button. We’ll that’s all there is to getting your first program up and running. Just start a new program, make your changes, save them, connect to your PLC, write those changes out. Then you can make future changes while the PLC is running! If you don’t have a hardware PLC laying around, check out the video on the Do-more Simulator. It simulates a fully functional PLC so you can test your program without having the hardware on your desk. Be sure to check-out the other videos in this series to get more in depth info on the subjects we briefly covered here. And, as always, please send us any comments or suggestions you may have – we appreciate the feedback. Spend Less. Do More. From Automation Direct.