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Productivity PLC: UDS User Defined Structures - Custom PLC Tag Groups from AutomationDirect
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- The Productivity PLC line has User Defined Structures (UDS). This allows you to create custom grouped sets of similar or dissimilar data types (user defined tag) for organization and programming efficiency. User Defined Structures are a huge time saver. Allowing you to group PLC tags based upon a functional portion of your plc programming or other organizational method. Also if you have a bunch of the same functions using UDS will greatly reduce your setup time.
The Productivity Suite allows for the creation of 1D array of UDS. In this video we show the creation of a simple UDS but Productivity PLC can go even further. Please keep tuned in for more videos on this subject and see just how Productive you can get.
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The Productivity Suite has User Defined Structures (UDS) that allow for organization and programming efficiency. Let's say we have this motor conveyor that consists of 5 different motors. For each motor, we have a Run/Stop, Motor Engage, Motor Running status bit, ESTOP, Motor Speed, and Motor Temperature. We could create custom names for each tag to make some organization, but this would have to be done manually for each tag and that time can add up if we have a bunch of tags. So, in our example, we would need the following tags to define the status of each motor. This will be the Definition for our User Defined Structure. You will need to create the definition before creating and applying the User Defined Tags. To create the definition, select here under UDS Definitions. Select to create a New UDS. I will give this definition the name "Motor_Group". Then just start placing the members and their data types. So, we have our Run/Stop, Motor Engage, Motor Running, ESTOP, Speed, and Temperature. And as you can see here, there is a bunch of other data types that can be used in this User Defined Structure. So there are tons of ways these User Defined Structures can be helpful. When I hit Ok here, you can see the definition that we just created. Which can be edited, copied, exported, etc. Now that we have created the definition we need to create the actual structure tags for this motor group. So, go into the Tag Database. Select Add Tags and give this structure a name. Select here to define this as a user structure and since I have 5 motors on this conveyor, I will need 5 consecutive structures. Select the user structure we created earlier. Select to add this structure. Now you will see your structure in the database. To call these members, the naming convention will look like this. If you notice that all of the discretes were mapped to internal tags so we will need to reassign the physical inputs or outputs to these tags. This is done easily by going into the hardware configuration, selecting the input or output module that the physical input or output is wired to and then applying the tag name created from our UDS. Now that we have those reassigned, we are ready to roll. The real power of this becomes apparent when we start multiplying these motor groups. Imagine just how much time this would save if you have 3, 6, 9, 12. Once again Productivity is finding ways to make your job easier and more Productive. If you have any question of the Productivity line of PLCs, please feel free to comment below or call into our Free Technical Support Department. Select here to see more on our Productivity PLCs and make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel for our new products and solutions.
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