Yaskawa
eLearning
You are watching the IEC 61131 Basic Series
In this video we'll explain how to use the
Help system of MotionWorks IEC
Hi I'm Matt Pelletier,
at this point I assume you've worked through
the programming QuickStart tutorial videos
and so you have some experience with
MotionWorks IEC.
So the idea is that now if you can learn how to use
the different parts of the Help system
you'll be able to help yourself as we move
along with MotionWorks IEC and IEC 61131.
So first as an overview, we need to
understand that IEC programming has
various components and so by nature
there is also a modular Help system
covering those different components.
Each part of the software therefore has a
separate Help file for both flexibility and accuracy
and so I'd also point out
that you can search for the CHM files,
that's the extension of the files if you
would like to read all of those or have
those collected for reference
we don't normally do that but sometimes they help
is requested in that fashion
and one thing that's interesting is to note
that there's the country dialing code is
appended to the file name
and that's one way to find the languages
for English or Japanese, Chinese
or the other supported languages.
So moving on to the Programming Interface,
let's go locate the Help
here under the Question Mark Menu
and you can see the different areas
of help for the software
So this first one here is called Contents
you can open this
this will bring you to the MotionWorks IEC Pro Help
and you can expand this to
see the different areas
such as IEC 61131 Basics
so if you would prefer to learn
by reading the documentation,
this is the place for you,
IEC 61131 Basics
you can read more about data types and
variables and I'll be pointing out these
different pieces at the appropriate times
during this training tutorial series.
So I'll close this Help
now let's go to the Help
about IEC 61131
you can see it really goes to the same Help file
called MotionWorks IEC Pro
it just goes to this folder IEC 61131 Basics
so that's a shortcut for you.
The third one down says Help on Standard FB/FU
and you can tell that the title of this
is a separate separate file
so this is the Help for all of the different
functions and function blocks associated
with IEC 61131.
Usually we'll use right-click Help
on the block to find the Help
for a specific instruction
but this is the full Help for that
and then the final one, PLC Help
is again a shortcut to the
Help file MotionWorks IEC Pro
the PLC Help area
as opposed to IEC 61131 Basics
so this is all one file
there's really two files going on here
there's the file for the instructions
and then there's the file
for how to use the programming system
and the section on IEC 61131 Basics
and if you are interested in seeing these
Help files in a language other than
English you need to go to the menu item
here next to the Help called Extras and
you'll choose Options
and there are many tabs within the Options
you want to go to the General tab
and choose the language of your choice
you will need to restart the software
it'll tell you Restart the software
in order to use this language.
I'm going to leave mine on English.
And as I mentioned this red icon
for the Help on the instructions
applies specifically to the IEC 61131 instructions
such as Add, Subtract, Timer or Pulse
and this also applies, I maybe
didn't say this directly,
to the Edit Wizard groups called
Function Blocks, Functions, String Functions
and Type Convert Functions.
All of the Help is for these blocks in those groups
of the Edit Wizard are located in this
Help on Standard Function and Function Block
and again also available in several
languages.
OK, so I promised I would show the right-click Help
it's really straightforward
you right-click on a block either in the Edit Wizard
or in the code.
So let's take a minute here to look at that
and in this case I'm in the Type Convert Functions
still from the last video
let's look at DWORD_TO_BYTE
you can right-click on it
so the Help for the function block
and you can see it gives you the Help,
tells you what to do with the input
and output parameter.
Let's go to a more interesting one...
in fact when we open up the Main POU
and right-click on the counter
you know in the previous example
I just told you exactly what to put on there
and however you could have figured it out
yourself by looking at the Help for
that function block
and you'd see what each of the input and
output parameters are for,
which data type is expected
and a description of what they do
they'll even go so far as to give you an example
this is even where I got the idea for
the parking garage
from this online Help
and you can see that this right-click is
simply a shortcut to this Help for
functions and function blocks file to
the exact location that tells you the Help.
Let's try a few more...
maybe the Add Block
right-click and Help on that one
okay
maybe something interesting like
R_TRIG Rising Edge Detection
right-click Help
and this Help
although labeled here by Yaskawa
is specific to IEC 61131
and so the Help that we show here
is the same Help for all practical purposes
that you would see in another
manufacturer here for R_TRIG
and finally I'd like to point out what
we call the Contextual Help button
a lot of times you'll have a question about what
does the Download screen
what does all this mean?
Well there's a Help button
somewhere on here if you can find that Help button
many of your questions will be answered.
It may bring up other questions
but in many of the areas that
we've already used, you may have noticed
a Help button and so if you're wondering
what's the rest of the story?
What does everything do?
What do other buttons do in that area?
click on the Help and that will bring you
exactly to the area of the Help file
that explains what's going on with this
particular function.
Let me now talk through a simple example
of how you might use the Help
in order to learn what you need to learn
while you're programming.
Let's say I'm looking through the Edit Wizard
and I see there's oh a timer that'll be useful
and so I will right-click on the timer
and I see there's some Help on the timer
I notice it took pulled up the Help on
Functions and Function Blocks
and I noticed that there is an input parameter
called PT, the Preset Time Interval
and the Data Type is Time
now that might be new to me with IEC
a Data Type called Time
so I'll minimize that one and go to
the Help on IEC 61131
and within IEC 61131 Basics, I see...
OK, there are Data Types in IEC 61131
and Elementary Data Types
I could look through this list here and
see all of the IEC Data Types
and you notice that one of them is Time.
I can see also an example how this is done here
t#0s for default initial value
and so I wonder if I could search for t#
and see more about what that means.
Let's search...alright t#
and it say Elementary Data Type
that's where I just was
Graphical Editor,
Initializing Variables
comes up in Sequential Function Chart
and it even comes up in this here Literals
I can see here for a
Numeric Literals, oh there, okay here it is
there's different ways to indicate Time
as a Literal,
literal, remember means a Constant
not a Variable but a Constant
and so there's different formats
for using Time.
Anyway, all this you can find
by just following the trail of Help
in order to learn what you need to learn
in order to in this case,
I want to learn how to use a Timer.
We will go through learning
how to use timers in a future video.
OK, let's close that and also
I think that I should show the
Context-sensitive Help
for example, we have been doing Download
using the Project Control Dialogue
and I had shown that there is a Help button here
let's click that Help button and you can see
it brings us right up here to the
Control Dialogue Resource
and it's going through here to tell us what the
Title bar, the State, Stop, Cold, Warm, Hot,
Restart, Go, Step, Trace
if you want to know what all of these do
there is a detailed description
and you can see even links to more
related Help topics.
And lastly, don't forget the old faithful
F1 key for context-sensitive Help
Even if you don't see a Help button,
it's worth hitting the F1 key in the active window
and that'll shoot you straight to
the pertinent place in the
software's Help system.
And so with this brief introduction
I think I will leave you
to use the Help from here on out
to try to answer your questions
and I'll be promoting the use of the Help system
in the future videos as well
and we'll see you in the next video
of Yaskawa's IEC61131 Basics.