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C
R O S S A U T O M A T I O N . . . . A P P L I C A
T I O N N O T E S |
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Industry:
General
Project: Providing
Connectivity Capability to Serial Printer
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| Overview:
Our
client, a manufacturer in North Carolina, is required to print certain
information on their product at different intervals based on the type of
product being produced.
The information to be printed and to be used to determine the print
interval is transmitted from their production system as a comma separated
variable ASCII string. |
System
Objectives
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Provide
connectivity between shop floor PC and PLC
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Separate
Print data from set-up data
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Change
Print length based on type of cable
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Transmit
printer set-up and Print data to serial printer
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Design
Challenges
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Receive
data via one port and Transmit to printer via another port
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Connect
RS-232C serial ports via fiber optic modems
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Understand
printer protocol and write a Protocol Macro for serial printer
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Develop
program code in ladder to separate CSV string
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System
Solutions
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Utilize the
communication power of the CS1 CPU to handle four serial ports
simultaneously
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Installed a
CS1W-SCB41 with Protocol Macro functionality to transmit data to
printer
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Use Protocol Macro
Development software to develop protocol strings for serial printer
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Utilized CS1’s
built-in string instructions to locate commas and store separated data
as variables
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Customer
Benefits
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Eliminated extra
programming required in SCADA system
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Eliminated operator
errors when entering print string & length
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Improved handling
of cable orders
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Allows lines to
handle a broad variety of product types
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