DirectSoft5 PLC Programming Software - Navigating DS Launch at AutomationDirect

welcome to automation direct media series we're going to walk through D s launch which is our directsoft5 launch screen and we'll navigate through it she noticed we're sensing links these are communications links that are already in our DS launch screen so keep that in mind we'll discuss it in a minute we're now in RDS launch screen we do highly suggest that you use the DS launch versus just going into directs often programming a lot of customers would call up and say hey I went in and program something how do I connect up to the PLC well they went in to directly to direct soft programming software programmed offline might have made it a little bit more difficult it's a lot easier if you're just going to D S launch you can go through set up your comm links connect up to the PLC live programming if you just want to go in and program offline just double click on here and it'll take you directly into direct soft offline over on the right hand side you can see that we have all of the PLC's that are supported with this package I have a full full version so I can program any PLC that automationDirect sells if you have a cut down version it'll actually list those so keep that in mind if you're trying to program some PLC like a 4 or 5 and all you have is a cut down it's not going to do that that's going to be the problem utilities we've added a lot of utilities in ES launch for directsoft5 first two are links to automationDirect and host engineering's websites why is that you can go to our website you can download new firmware for your PLC's or you can get later versions or updated versions of direct Sophos there's any later releases out there and those are for free just builds and maintenance releases are free visit host Engineering they actually have a list of what they've added in any updates so if there's a any features added or something removed they'll actually have all that so if you want to know what's the difference between the version you have and the latest version out there go to host Engineering's website also they'll have information about all the modules and software's that they created CTR aiyo that is a counter IO module host engineering actually developed it but is a high-speed input output module for counting and you have to have the workbench to go in and and set these up they are intelligent modules so depending on what you're using to master it either a PLC or maybe some computer software to an EBC profibus or you want to set it up offline you'll use these links in these utilities URM that is an ethernet remote master configuration tool and you'll set up your arms with this we'll have a video about this as well so watch those later on but you can use erm to either master say slave racks with eb sees in them or you can master things like AC drives that have an e drive card in them DB win32 logger basically this is debugging aid for Windows NT okay the next icon we have is D and loader know what being loader is going to do is allow you to send a program to a user or a customer end user and they can actually upload the program changes without using direct soft that way you're not worried about an end user messing up things with the program or you know screwing up the machine so it doesn't run anymore so in the past some of the older versions of direct soft if they needed to upload something if we didn't offer a memory cartridge or a memory module for the CPU you actually had to you know send out somebody to physically go load it on the machine or you had to have your end users in the processor or other POC back in and you had to load the program for them otherwise you did take a chance of you know if your customer really wasn't PLC savvy and they're trying to load the program in they could have messed things up made life a lot more difficult so now with DeeAnn loader you can actually go in this doesn't cost anything just send them with the end loader and they can upload the program to the PLC no worries about messing anything up net edit 3 make sure you have the latest version of net edit before you use it but net edit is basically to help you configure any of your Ethernet modules so if you need to go in look at things like the MAC address the IP address the name on it set things up like that that edits going to be your friend calculator instead of having to search through your computer and find the calculator we actually have a link to it we use it a lot just for things like converting decimal to binary etc version is going to give you the latest our version the software that you actually have so you can check see if you've got the latest or not yes five hundred I and I what is that older versions of direct soft we did things like actually all versions of direct soft we had things that you could go in and enable and disable but older versions let's just say for instance we had common ports one two three and four we're enabled five six seven and eight we're disabled well you wanted to use comport eight because you had that many on your computer you had to go into the ini file after you found it well finding it and might not you know be a lot of fun you might not have time for that so just to make it a little easier we put it up there at way you can go in and find the ini file enable comm ports you can disable things like the audio audio sensing on comlinks remember I said that when we first launched the screen it actually goes up and senses all of your comm links if you've got 10 or 15 of them it might take a couple seconds to sense if they're enabled or disabled if that aggravates you you don't want that feature you can go in and disable that we'll have another video on that later on the projects any projects you don't end up in the software or on this computer will actually show up here there's some projects that you haven't opened up you can right-click do a browse and find those projects comlinks we've got some offline or disabled comlinks here so you notice to compute the computer is not connected to these PLC's anymore and the one at the bottom actually green so it means that the computer did find it when it Auto sensed when we first launched es launched so to connect up to any of those just double click on it and it'll connect up to your active comm links for your active PLC's if you want to add some you'll right click to add a link and we'll have a video for that later on as well so I hope you follow us along some of our other videos thanks have a great day