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PLC I/O Utility - ACADE 2012 - adding block when not in spreadsheet

12 REPLIES 12
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Message 1 of 13
conrad.rohrer
1179 Views, 12 Replies

PLC I/O Utility - ACADE 2012 - adding block when not in spreadsheet

When using 2010 this wasn't a problem.

Now, using 2012, the PLC I/O Utility will add a block when it's not in the imported spreadsheet.

 

In the attached spreadsheet, on the first card, on the first point:

The connected device block will be imported.

The terminal block will be imported.

But the utility is adding a left arrow block when it's not in the spreadsheet...and trimming the wire.

 

Any help is appreciated!

 

Conrad 

12 REPLIES 12
Message 2 of 13

Update:

This occurs on 1756-IA16I - Isolated input card.

It doesn't occur when using the 1756-IA16 card.

 

Message 3 of 13
jalger
in reply to: conrad.rohrer

Hi Conrad,

 

Can you Post a Screenshot of the Issue?

 

Regards,

 

James

James Alger
(I'm on several hundred posts as "algerj")

Work:
Dell Precision 5530 (Xeon E 2176M)
1tb SSD, 64GB RAM
Nvidia Quadro P2000, Win10
Message 4 of 13

Attachement included...

Message 5 of 13
jalger
in reply to: conrad.rohrer

Hi Conrad,

 

The CSV file you posted shows HA1X3, and HA1X1 as one of the items (it goes all the way down your List).

HA1X3 is the Left General Source arrow.

HA1X1 is the Right General Source arrow.

 

Was that in the file before you processed it through The PLC IO Utility?

 

if not, it could be the PLC I/O Utility setup.

see the screenshot below.

 

PLC-IO-Setup.png

 

Try Changing the Arrow style and see if the Arrow Heads disappear.

 

I hope this helps,

 

James

 

James Alger
(I'm on several hundred posts as "algerj")

Work:
Dell Precision 5530 (Xeon E 2176M)
1tb SSD, 64GB RAM
Nvidia Quadro P2000, Win10
Message 6 of 13
conrad.rohrer
in reply to: jalger

The Left/Right General Source arrows are included on purpose.

When I add a terminal to the IO point, the PLC I/O Utility doesn't have a way to trim the wire.

Therefore, the arrows are added to let the CAD operators know they need to 'loop and trim'.

 

So, back to the main issue...

I believe this is caused by the extra terminals on the isolated input card.

I don't believe adjusting the Setup for this utility will correct this issue.

If I change the setup for isolated input cards, the normal input cards wouldn't work.

 

With that said, if anyone has a solution, it would be much appreciated.

 

Conrad

Message 7 of 13

Conrad,

 

I'd be glad to help but I am not clear on the issue yet.  I don't have AutoCAD Electrical 2010 installed at this time so I tried your file on 2009 and 2012 and the drawings generated appear to be the same.

 

Can you post the drawing as it is created from your csv file? Also, it would help if you can add some notes on it indicating exactly what was added that you do not think should come in. 

 

Regards,

Pat Murnen



Pat Murnen
Principal Content Developer
Product Development – AutoCAD Product Line Group

Autodesk, Inc.

Message 8 of 13

I've posted the resulting drawing in a previous post.  Let me know if you can't find it.

 

I've also posted the .csv file I'm using for the import in a previous post.  Let me know if you can't find this, either.

 

My issue:

When importing a 1756-IA16I - (Allen Bradley ControlLogix, AC, 16-point, isolated)...

the 16 wires and devices don't line-up (connect) with the proper 16 input points.

The device connected to input 5 doesn't get drawn on the line connected to input 5 terminal.

 

At first, I thought that the devices even though they were present in the import file weren't drawn in ACADE.

Now, it appears that if I change the AB card type to 1756-IA16 (non-isolated input) all the devices get generated.

So, I believe it is an issue with the type of card being used.

 

Thanks for your help.

Let me know if you need more details.

Conrad

 

Message 9 of 13

I do see the csv file and an image file (PNG) but I do not see a drawing (DWG) file. Can you post that? Also, if you are inserting any custom symbols as part of this can you include those as well? I want to have everything to try and reproduce the drawing that you get when you run the utility.

 

Also, if you can take a screen shot of the definition of terminals for the PLC in the PLC editor that also might be helpful.This way I can see if the module is defined the same in my database.

 

By the way, the PLC utility does have some trimming capabilities so if you can show an image of what you really want it to do, maybe you can even skip the arrow and do the actual trim. It might not be possible but I can take a look.

 

Regards,

Pat Murnen



Pat Murnen
Principal Content Developer
Product Development – AutoCAD Product Line Group

Autodesk, Inc.

Message 10 of 13

Sorry for the delay in posting...

 

Attached is the dwg file and import spreadsheet.

I don't believe we are using any special blocks for the 1756-IA16I card.  I believe the block is an ACADE 'out of the box' block.

 

Just to reiterate the issue, when using the isolated input card, the components don't get 'wired' to the proper input terminal.

 

As far as trimming, my goal is to trim the wire on a spare input that contains a terminal block.

We add terminal blocks by default to all spares since we don't know if they will be used for internal (no term blk) or external (term blk) connections.

I add the general arrow to trim the wire and alert the CAD operator that they need to 'laso and trim'.

Message 11 of 13

Few things -

 

1. In the drawing you provided, what settings\mappings did you use for the spreadsheet columns? Can you re-run and save your settings in a .wdi file and post that? 

2. Can you post a .dwg showing what the drawing should look like if it was built as you are expecting it to be built?

3. I see that you are using a custom PLC style. Can you zip up and post all the hp6*.dwg files in your library set?

 

Regards,

Pat Murnen

 



Pat Murnen
Principal Content Developer
Product Development – AutoCAD Product Line Group

Autodesk, Inc.

Message 12 of 13

1. I've attached the .wdi file that my department uses.

 

2. I'm not proficent at doing drawings, so I would look at the imported spreadsheet to get an idea of how it should be wired.

     If this is a problem I could see if a CAD operator could manually draw this.  In a nutshell, it should look like the 1756-IA16 card; one device per input terminal (or a spare).

 

3. I'm not sure what you mean by "custom PLC style".  Are these the blocks for the 1756 I/O cards?

 

You are more than welcome to call me.  It may prove faster then via email.

Can you view my email address? 

 

 

Message 13 of 13

Regarding PLC custom styles - Each PLC module is generated from a set of blocks. There are different sets of blocks for this to create various styles of PLC modules. AutoCAD Electrical supplies 5 styles and supports up to 9 allowing you to create your own PLC styles. TO make this work each set of library symbols are named following this convention:

1st character = H or V for horizontal or vertical

2nd character = P to indicate it is for the PLC

3rd character = a number indicating the style so 1-9

rest of characters indicate the type of terminal, i.e. input, output, both, etc.

 

So your drawing was set up to use style 6 which is a custom style. So in your library folder there are likely a bunch of symbols HP6*.dwg and VP6*.dwg. A default library path might be C:\Users\Public\Documents\Autodesk\Acade 2012\Libs\jic125.

 

You can find out more about PLC styles at this help topic which is for 2015 but applies to 2012.

http://help.autodesk.com/view/ACAD_E/2015/ENU/?guid=GUID-9BEA681B-BC98-4B07-BCD6-DFC33647C637 

 

Regarding the drawing generation - I was getting some strange results with the .wdi file you provided. The module was generating on top of the ladder for some reason. So I used the spreadsheet settings from yours so I got the right columns, and the default drawing settings so the module was placed correctly. I removed everything from your spreadsheet except the module in question, 1756-IA16I. I have attached the drawing that was created from this. I also have attached the .wdi file I used.

 

To me the drawing appears to agree with the spreadsheet. Can you look at the drawing and see if it what you are expecting? If not please let me know specifically what is not expected.

 

One thing that can affect how a PLC module is generated is the module's definition in the PLC database. I have attached a couple of screen shots from the module's definition in my PLC database. You can compare it to yours.

 

If you want to talk you can email your phone number to me directly at pat.murnen@autodesk.com.

 

Regards,

Pat Murnen

 



Pat Murnen
Principal Content Developer
Product Development – AutoCAD Product Line Group

Autodesk, Inc.

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