Created Date: April 20,2016

Created by: bcarlton

The video does not say that you - the programmer can issue simple UDP messages.

It says that implicit messaging part of the Ethernet/IP protocol uses UDP as its basis.

So, can you set up implicit Ethernet/IP messaging (which happens to use UDP as its basis)? Yes

Can you send UDP messages which aren't part of implicit Ethernet/IP messages? No.

This isn't to say that they can't make that available. It just isn't there right now.

Created Date: April 27,2016

Created by: Brandon_

Sorry for the late response guys, I 've been slammed with work.

First, I should preface all of this with; I'm not a PLC guy. My background comes from show and animation controllers that are timeline based. Alcorn McBride, Gilderfluke, etc. My first experience with any ladder logic was in October 2015 with a Click. Due to the lack of ethernet port (I required the ability to remotely troubleshoot / edit programs), I ended up ordering a P2000. Why the P2000? It had an ethernet port and was the cheapest option available that would do the I/O that I needed. Other than those, the only other experience I had with PLC's or ladder logic was in November 2015 during one of Doug Bell's Intro to PLC classes that I took at AD (which were FANTASTIC might I add! Well worth every dime!) The position I hold with our company is one of many different hats. One day we 're designing games on paper, the next I'm pulling cable, building PLC cabinets. The week after? I'm flying into whatever new market we 're planning on opening one of our attractions in to scout properties. The short of it is, I don't spend nearly as much time programming a PLC that many of you do.

So moving on. When I ordered the P2000, I had no idea the difference between address based vs tag based. I had no idea that products still existed that used octal. I had only briefly played with the Click and since I knew exactly zero about ladder logic, I didn't know enough to spot the differences. Fast forward to today where I 've built a nice rack and I'm comfortable with programming a tag based PLC (at least, a Productivity series) and I'm comfortable with the Productivity Suite.

I do not have a Do-More PLC to play with. I have only messed about in the software for a few hours. What was immediate is compared to Productivity Suite, the "polish " and UX just isn't there. Sure, a programming console doesn't have to be polished, but Productivity Suite IS very polished, which is impressive for a product so "young " compared to the other programming software out there. The UX is fantastic. So why move backwards? If you 've been driving a Mercedes, do you really want to move over to a Kia? As far as specifics are concerned, the toolbars don't scale well, the comprise the top 1/5 of the screen when they don't need to. Over in the instruction toolbox, there are no scroll bars to quickly move to a particular instruction you may need. Sure, if you know the name of the coil you can simply type it in, but for someone like myself who does not program day in and day out, it's not very effective. Instead, you have to click, click, click, click the down arrow until you come across the instruction you may have been looking for.

Probably the biggest reason is I simply don't want to "go back " to address based programming. For my profession, I will never need to know address based programming. Where someone else as a technician for XYZ company production plant may move to ABC company production plant (thus needing to know every aspect of ladder logic / types of PLC's), if I ever leave this company, I'll end up back in the entertainment and attraction industry using what we use, which isn't PLC's. I (unknowingly) spec 'ed a tag based PLC. I learned everything I know on a tag based PLC. Every one of our locations across the country will use the same exact setup that I have here in Pittsburgh. Sticking with this or another tag based, like CompactLogix, seems like the right way to go for me. After seeing all of the additional instructions that the Do-More has, it's clearly a more powerful PLC than the P2000, but the P2000 does nearly everything I need it to. UDP messaging would make it perfect, but I have a workable solution without it. On the plus note, it's something that can be added down the line if FACT's ever decides to add it to the firmware. Even in just the last few months we 've seen two program updates, the entire ability to do networked remote racks and a few other odds and ends. I'm sure they aren't going to stop adding features any time soon.

Created Date: April 28,2016

Created by: BobO

"I do not have a Do-More PLC to play with. "

Sure you do. The simulator is actually a fully functional virtual PLC and can drive any comm device the actual PLC can. You could fully develop and test your UDP app in the Sim.

"As far as specifics are concerned, the toolbars don't scale well, the comprise the top 1/5 of the screen when they don't need to. "

You can change them to use small icons and you can turn off the toolbar text. When reduced fully, they are the same height as the menu bar, and both major bars will fit on one row. If that isn't efficient enough, you can construct your own toolbars containing only the commands you want.

"Over in the instruction toolbox, there are no scroll bars to quickly move to a particular instruction you may need. "

I rarely use scrollbars any more since the majority of displays support the scroll wheel, which DmD's toolbox does. Way more efficient than a scroll bar. You can also hold the buttons down...no need to click multiple times.

"Probably the biggest reason is I simply don't want to "go back " to address based programming. "

I always get a kick out of this one simply because I couldn't agree more...I wouldn't want to use address based programming either...and don't. Do-more is fully symbolic, meaning that nicknames are true symbols and can be used just like tag names everywhere an element is required. Not only that, any time you want to create a working variable and don't care where it gets created, just type the name in a field. When you accept the instruction DmD will prompt to create the 'tag ' and automatically assign an address from the selected memory type. Additionally, there is a display mode (affectionately referred to here at Host as "Bob mode ") where you can turn on nicknames and turn off Elements, and the display will intelligently fill in the element field with the best name available...favoring nicknames over elements. That's the only way I run.

While I would personally never recommend address based programming, Do-more's model allows you to do either. There are a ton of good reasons to arrange things in memory a certain way, so it's nice to be able to do that. There are also very good reasons I shouldn't have to care where in memory things are. Do-more does both.

The real measurement of the sophistication of a system is how effectively it solves a problem and how productive the environment is. Most people using Do-more go through a period of adjustment, but by the time they complete a project, they find it very efficient and effective. I'm sorry that some of these surface issues have made it difficult to see what it is really capable of, but hopefully you'll be happy with Compact Logix.

Created Date: April 28,2016

Created by: BobO

...and one other thing. You were interested in UDP, but I can't personally envision writing communications code of any kind without some form of modular sequencing, which Do-more does with stunning simplicity. I have written communications code for nearly 30 years, and trust me when I say that I can write comm code far faster in Do-more than I can from a PC. There are others who say the same thing, including a couple of the guys at ADC that do product design verification testing. Rather than use a PC to do test comms, they write them in Do-more. It's that simple.

Created Date: April 28,2016

Created by: Brandon_

Bob, thanks for the detailed response. In one sense, I want to give Do-More a go. On the other hand, Productivity does everything I ask of it, except UDP messaging, but I was informed yesterday that UDP messages are on the roadmap. At the point, I can't see the need to A) learn different software and B) pay more for something when we don't need to leverage all that it can do.

RE: the toolbars that is excellent to know. I was put off by the software on the initial go that I'll be honest, I didn't give it much of a chance.

RE: instructions, scroll wheels are great, but I operate 99% of the time with my laptop without an external mouse. I have zero reason to need an external mouse on this. Dell has done a great job with their Precision line and the page up / dn keys are in perfect placement. I use them constantly to scroll through web pages or docs. But again, good info to know.

RE: address based programming; This is something I had no idea about. When I started adding coils and switches and it immediately popped up with "C0 " populated, I simply assumed that it was an address based PLC. I 've played with it a little more now. The tag-on-the-fly still isn't as smooth as Productivity and there are still parts of that aspect that I don't understand, but it's better than my first go around.

RE: UDP. (This is likely to get a bit off topic) This one you 're off the target on, for me at least. In my use case, right now I have BrightSign media players spread throughout my facility. Currently, I use their onboard GPIO port to trigger a file which is super inefficient. The GPIO on the BrightSign players are not opto isolated and worse, require a dry contact. I really, really dislike relays (to the point that I was in the process of having a PCB fabbed for me to have 8x bi-polar opto-isolated inputs to control some small packaged SSR's to replace these giant relay boards). Anyhow, that means an additional cable that I need to pull, in addition to the ethernet cable that I'm already pulling to the player for programming / publishing purposes. The BrightSign units have the ability to trigger off of a UDP message and in their case, it's a very simple message. I can tell the BrightSign player "Play video-xyz.mp4 when you receive the UDP message of "VideoXYZ " ". I need nothing more in the PLC than to "send "ThisDataString " to "Insert.IP:Port.Here " when rung goes true ". I don't need two way communication, I don't need anything more than send "VideoXYZ " to a specific IP. And actually if I don't repeat a message in the BrightSign programming, while not in good form, I don't even need to specify an IP. A multicast UDP message would work fine.