A Select Module box will appear where you can select Emulate 5570 Controller and click OK. Next, right-click slot 2 and select create. If these modules are not present, it is likely a sign that one of these applications is not installed or has version conflicts. If FactoryTalk Linx is installed on the computer, slot 1 will have a FactoryTalk Linx module. You will see the RSLinx Classic module in slot 0. Now, that we have a PLC program and an HMI display made it is time to emulate the controller. Finally, the S…S will take a string defined on the PLC for the name of the valve. Open will light up if the valve is in work/open. The energize indicator is true when the valve moves to the work/open position. The fault indicator turns on if feedback does not match the command. The On and Off buttons are commands to open and close the valve. The HMI will also be simple with one global object instance to display the state of the solenoid valve and allow for control. Thus, when we command the valve we will see the inputs match. We will have bOutHome energize bInSignalHome, which is an input showing that the feedback on the home position is true. bOutHome is an output of the AOI and is true when the device is in the home position. To give more context on the exact tags I have used, Valve_Device is the instance data type of our solenoid valve AOI. This trick saves the time of setting up the hardware configuration in the Logix Designer and Logix Emulate. An implementation of this is shown below. We can simply have outputs energize the inputs. If you haven’t used global objects before, check out this blog.Ĭonfiguring hardware can be difficult using an emulated PLC, so we will work around this. The Valve_HMI links information to display to the operator on the HMI via a global object. This data type is an InOut parameter for AOI_ValveSolenoid, so the AOI has read/write privileges. We will pass the AOI the tag Valve_HMI which is a user-defined data type. For a solenoid valve, we will use an AOI from DMC’s internal Rockwell library called AOI_ValveSolenoid.
Here at DMC, we use AOIs to improve code modularity and save time. The other two are for mapping inputs and outputs. One is an Add On Instruction or AOI in Device Control. There are three rungs total in this project. I have also included a picture of controller tags to help explain some of the tag definitions. There are two programs in the MainTask: Inputs and Device Control. To keep the focus on emulation, we will use a simple PLC program for a solenoid valve. We will explain the rationale for this latter. After clicking next, set the revision to 31 and put the controller in slot 2. When selecting a controller, select Emulate 5570 Studio 5000 Logix Emulate Controller. We will start in Studio 5000 Logix Designer and create a new project. Rockwell has more information on version compatibility. It is critically important to have compatible versions. This example will use Studio 5000 Logix Designer V31.01.00, FactoryTalk View Studio V10.00.00, Studio 5000 Logix Emulate V32.00.00, and RSLinx Classic V4.11.00. To emulate, you must have four applications.
This blog will walk you through how to do so using Rockwell’s Studio 5000 and FactoryTalk VIEW ME. Emulating a controller is a useful way to test PLC code and an HMI project when physical hardware is not available.