DirectSoft5 PLC Programming Software - Creating a Communication Link at AutomationDirect

[Music] [Applause] welcome to automation Direct Media I'm going to show you how to connect up to a PLC through a couple different options so the first one we're going to go through direct soft launch and I'll show you how to create some links and so forth so let's open our launch screen up and now that we're on a launch screen um you can go directly into directsoft programming through this top link which which we'll do that in a minute first we're going to go down to our com links and show you how to connect up so a couple of different things uh if you notice that we do have three links listed here the first two are in yellow which means that they are disabled so uh DS launch could not find those PCS when it opened up the last one does have a green light which means it's active so doft launch did find that PLC and it is connected and active so if we want to open that one up we'll just double click on it um back up a second let's just say that we don't see a link here for the PLC that we're looking for so we need to create a Comm link so first thing got a com links and we're going to right click and do add a link I have a D6 connected up through a Serial Port so we're going to select Comm one since we do know what it is since it's an ' 06 it's going to be down here in the zero family if not then we could put not sure and it's K sequence it's always cas sequence when you're on Comm one of any of our plc's that's the default uh protocol and so it ran through really quick hope you could catch that it did find it link settings complete so it did find the link so we're going to say DL 06 comm1 the description is up to you whatever you want to put on there let me just say this is uh machine one for your use basically so you can distinguish PLC to plc and you notice it gives you all the settings right here so we'll hit finish now you notice it is listed under our com link so we have a com link there we can double click on it and we can start a PLC project we're going to close that out going to back up a few seconds and what we're going to do is say okay I have all these links and maybe a couple of them I'm not using so I want to delete these either just select it hit delete on your keyboard or you can right click and hit delete yes we want to delete that one what if we want to edit it we want to change our connection to it we don't want to change the name so forth edit link say okay it's still a 250 it's 250-1 I want to change the description of where the machine is or whatnot I can do that I can change ports and also protocols okay now what if you're in direct soft programming well I've got ladder logic up right now and let's go through let's just say that we already programmed we wrote some code and we need to connect up to the PLC so let's go to PLC connect and if you don't see the link there basically you're going to do the same thing you're going to add a link and you'll walk through the same steps uh let's just say not sure for this one for the heck of it hey guess what it still found my 06 that was on Comm one we're going to select that one and it notices that there is a difference between the program that's actually in the PLC and a program that we have in front of us which literally nothing uh which one do you want to use well let's see what's in the PLC we'll use that one so it brings up shows us all the ladder which isn't but r one rung and now we're connected to the PLC oh I take that back there is a couple of wrongs here where are connected to the PLC we're reading what's in the PLC so that is how you connect up to a direct logic PLC using direct soft 5 uh programming software or the DS launch thanks have a great day