The Device Trace in SiMotion has built-in functionality that makes it easy to track down a pesky condition that might only happen once or twice per day. Rather than sit at the machine waiting all day for the fault to happen, you can set up a triggered recording and let Simotion do the work while you go get a cup of coffee. The following steps will walk you through setting up the trace configuration.

1. ​Select your signals. Add the variables that you want to monitor. These can be TO parameters, IO in the Address List or any global variable. This tutorial uses a bitwise triggered device trace. To use a bitwise trigger one of your signals needs to be a word (or dword) of mapped boolean values, such as an alarm word. You could also set up an edge trigger using an analog signal.

2. Parameterize the recording. To be able to store the trace on the device set the value in the "Meas. value acquisition:" dropdown to "Isochronous recording – time-limited trace". Set the duration to an appropriate length of time. You can set a pretrigger duration below to capture signals before the trigger event. 

3. Configure the Trigger. The trigger Type offers many options for triggering the trace including triggering on a rising or falling edge of a variable, boolean value, bit patterns or a programmatic TraceTrigger program call. This tutorial will only discuss the bit pattern trigger type. The bit pattern trigger is useful for monitoring a word or dword that is a group of mapped alarm bits. In this situation I wanted the trace to trigger when the ninth bit in ControllerSwitches0 went high. So both the Bit mask and the Bit pattern were set to 0200. Set the Pretrigger value to the amount of time you want in the trace leading up to the trigger event.

6. Choose Display Options. These settings can also be modified in the Time diagram window after the trace has been captured.

7. Save the Trace to the Device. Check the box next to "Save recording in the device". This will store the trace internally in the device memory so that you don't need to be connected to the Simotion controller for the trace to be active. 

8. Hit the Play Button. The status indicator at the top of the window will switch to "Trace 1 Waiting for trigger". The active signals will display in the Time diagram tab. The time on the x axis will be negative, indicating that the trigger condition has not been met.

9. Go Offline. The next time the trigger condition is met the trace will be captured. When you return to the Device trace window, the status at the top of the window will say "Trace 1 recording complete". 

To view the traces click the "Upload trace signals" button, shown in the image above. The "Time diagram" tab will display the signals.

Note: The trace will only record the first time the trigger condition is met. Select your trigger condition carefully to guarantee the correct data is captured.

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S7hcom_x 1.0 Type Library – The default location on my laptop is C:\Program Files (x86)\Siemens\Step7\S7BIN\S7HCOM_X.DLL)

Simatic 1.0 Type Library – C:\Program Files (x86)\Siemens\Step7\S7BIN\S7ABATCX.dll

Likewise, if you have SiMotion installed, the following DLL is registered with it:

SiMotion 1.0 Type Library – C:\Program Files (x86)\Siemens\Step7\S7BIN\U7WSCOAX.dll

With these libraries, PLC and SiMotion programmers can automate repetitive or difficult tasks in the familiar .NET development environment using the off-the-shelf Microsoft COM Interop tool.

Working withSimatic Manager

Using these DLL’s to mimic Simatic Manager is called using the Command Interface, and  the object reference manual can be found on CD 2 of the Step 7 installation CD. After adding the DLLs as references in your project, getting started is as easy as the following:

 Simatic Sim = new Simatic(); Project Proj = Sim.Projects.Add(@“C:\MyProject\MyProject.s7p”); Console.WriteLine("Project created on: “ + Proj.Created); 

Working with SiMotion Scout

The parallel tool in SiMotion scout is simply called external scripting, and its object reference is in the standard Scout help interface. It’s pretty straightforward as well:

Application app = new Application();

Project proj = app.Projects[
    @"C:\MyProject\MyProject.s7p"
];

Console.WriteLine("Compiling Project");

proj.Build();

Application app = new Application();

Project proj = app.Projects[
    @"C:\MyProject\MyProject.s7p"
];

Console.WriteLine("Compiling Project");

proj.Build();

There it is. You can see how easy it is to access project data and remotely send commands to projects.

Implementation Ideas

As someone who works with Simatic Manager and SiMotion Scout on a daily basis, there are some interesting possibilities for automation using these tools. Here are a few ideas I am throwing around:

1. Source control integration using SVN or similar tools. Currently Siemens does not offer a comprehensive source control solution for code, and third party tools are prohibitively expensive and do not offer the same merging, branching, and traceability features that are common in text-based programming languages. I could see DMC using these DLLs to automate exporting  code source files into an SVN repo, and also importing them back into projects in order to have more sophisticated diff, merge, and trace capabilities in our Siemens projects.
2. Automating repetitive programming tasks. For instance, oftentimes customers supply huge IO lists that need to be entered into a Siemens program, whether into the Symbol Table, data blocks, or code itself. These tools would let us automate these tasks to save a great deal of time, and reduce human error.
3. Improving connectivity with other applications. We often have to export tag information from a Siemens data block to a CSV file in order to import it into some other company’s tool- an OPC server for instance. These DLLs give us a straightforward way to move data in and out of Siemens projects.
4. Data acquisition from online data. Simatic Manager does not have a great trace feature like SiMotion does. These DLLs would allow a custom DAQ tool to collect data from the PLC without the need of an intermediary party’s driver, OPC server, etc.

I’m sure there are many more possibilities (and of course many may have been done already). Thanks for giving us these great tools, Siemens! And if anyone have any other insights or implementation ideas, be sure to let me know in the comments below.

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Using the shaftless drive technology requires the use of a motion controller to command the system. Siemens Industry and Automation’s motion control platform, SiMotion, is a powerful and flexible platform that can be used for such a purpose. The SiMotion software package allows the programmer to configure all of the drives and axes with great flexibility and detail and gives the capability to program in three different languages: text-based, ladder or function block diagram (FBD), and in a motion chart.

A typical approach to programming a shaftless drive solution would be to do any math required in the text-based portion, any peripheral I/O control and basic sequence logic would be done in ladder, and all of the motion commands to control the axes/drives would be programmed in the Motion Charts. The Motion Chart section would contain all of the individual motion commands to control the axes from enabling and disabling, to moving to a position, to gearing.

Since most of the shaftless drive solutions follow the same control strategy, Siemens has created the “SiMotion Shaftless Drive Standard”. This Standard outlines a programming structure and contains a library of functions that work well to control such solutions. The basic ideas contained in this strategy are outlined below:

• All of the tasks such as basic logic processing are done in the cyclical background tasks and all of the motion tasks are done in the a-cyclical Motion Tasks.
  • The standard supplies a pre-written Motion Task for each axis specific to the tasks of line-shaft replacement system.
  • Control of each axis is performed through a standard mode interface.
• A set of typical axis modes are defined and the motion tasks are almost entirely performed simply by assigning a mode to the axis.
• The interface parameters affect the axis behavior in each mode.

In a recent project, I implemented the SiMotion Shaftless Drive Standard for a printing application- a rotary cutter positioned at the end of a printing press. This application contains the basic components that allow for easy implementation of the standard. There are three rotary axes on the rotary cutter that are geared during operation to follow an encoder on the press. A “knife setup” routine allows the operator to step through several configurable positions on the knife axis. The implementation of the Shaftless Standard contains the following components:

• A Virtual Master axis follows the press encoder.
• The program contains three real following axes which follow the Virtual Master.
• Each axes has its own Motion Task consisting of a call to the Standard’s axis function block.

Using the Shaftless Standard gives several advantages:

• In order to gear each of the real axes to the virtual master, we simply need to set the axes in “Gear Mode” and the Standard takes care of the individual motion commands.
• The knife setup routine requires that we put the knife axis in “positioning mode”. Then the program just changes the position set point for each new position, and the axis moves to that position.
• Since we use a setup that is a standard recognized by Siemens, the system is easily supported by Siemens world-wide network of application engineers.
• Once a programmer is comfortable designing systems following the Shaftless Standard, program creation and debug times are shortened.

The SiMotion Shaftless Drive Standard is available to qualified end-users and Automation Solution Providers, such as DMC through your local Siemens Application Engineer.

You can read more about the Rotary Cutter project in our case studies.

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