JP3397006B2 - Input/Output Display Unit - Google Patents

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

FIELD OF THEINVENTION The present invention relates to a display device for input/output data of a programmable controller or the like.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art: PLC (Programmable Controller)
The prior art for displaying input and output data in the above will be described.

[0003] A conventional PLC (programmable controller) is shown in Fig. 5. As shown in Fig. 5, PLCs can be roughly divided into a) building block type and b) block type.

In Fig. 5a, 501 is a power supply unit, 502 is a CPU unit, and 503 to 507 are input/output units. A PLC is configured by connecting these units. Fig. 5b) shows a configuration in which each unit in Fig. 5a is housed in a single housing.

In either case, the indicator (usually a LED)
The input/output unit has LEDs 509 to 513 and a display 514. These displays can display data for the number of input/output points attached to the input/output unit.
In this case, the input/output points correspond to the LEDs on the display.
Therefore, if the number of LEDs on the display is equal to or greater than the number of input/output points, the display can be performed as is.

In a PLC (programmable controller), the display of input and output data is an essential function for checking wiring and the operation of a control system when a control system is constructed using a PLC. The main method of such checking is to use a display to confirm that output data is ON (or OFF) when input data is turned ON (or OFF).

[0007]

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] When constructing a control system using a PLC, as the scale of the system increases, the control becomes more complex and the number of input/output points also increases. The increase in the number of input/output points leads to an increase in the number of input/output units. Furthermore, the installation locations of the input/output units are dispersed in order to install them near the connected devices. This increase in the number of units and dispersion causes problems such as difficulty in matching input/output display devices (identifying which unit it is) and the inability to check the input/output display in one place.

As mentioned above, the display attached to the input/output unit only has the function of displaying the input/output data as is, which creates the problem that in many cases the display becomes unnecessary once the operation check work is completed.

An object of the present invention is to provide a method for solving such problems.

[0010]

[Means for solving the Problem] In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, the invention described in claim 1 has a CPU unit for collectively managing input/output data, and one or more input/output units, said CPU unit having a memory element for storing said input/output data, an input/output data display for displaying said stored input/output data, input means for indicating an input/output unit for which input/output data should be displayed among said one or more input/output units, a memory element for storing data indicating the position of the input/output unit input by said input means, and a memory element for storing data indicating the position of the input/output unit stored in said memory element.
In an input/output display device provided with one or more display unit position dedicated displays for displaying data to be input to the input/output device,
Display unit position indicator installed in the PU unit
This makes it possible to confirm which position of the one or more input/output units the input/output data being displayed on the input/output data display belongs to.

[0011] The invention described in claim 2 is an input/output display device according to the invention described in claim 1, which has a counter for measuring the display time and a switching circuit for switching the position display content displayed on the display unit position dedicated display in a time-division manner based on the output of the counter, and which indicates which data and at which position the input/output data currently being displayed is.

The invention described in claim 3 is the same as claim 1 or 2.
In the invention described above, the input/output display device is characterized by having a means for detecting a fault and displaying the details of the detected fault on the input/output data display.

[0013] The invention described in claim 4 is an input/output display device according to any of the inventions described in claims 1 to 3, characterized in that it has a memory means in which a user can set any data and a switching means, and the arbitrary data set by the user is displayed by the switching means.

The invention described in claim 5 is an input/output display device according to any one of the inventions described in claims 1 to 4, characterized in that it has a switching means for switching between displaying input/output data and displaying memory, and also displays data at any address in the memory.

[0015]

[Function] In the present invention, the user can operate the operation switch while checking the display unit position dedicated indicator that shows the position of the currently displayed I/O data. Also, by switching the display data of the I/O data indicators corresponding to multiple I/O units, the I/O data of any I/O unit can be displayed on the adjacent I/O indicator.

In the present invention, when the number of input/output units being displayed exceeds the number of points that can be displayed on the display, the data display unit displays the number of data that can be displayed, and the display unit position dedicated display unit displays the position of the unit that is displaying the data and its address within the unit,
Display in time division.

In the present invention, when a fault occurs, the details of the fault are displayed on the input/output data display.

In the present invention, even during normal operation, data arbitrarily set by the user is displayed according to the user's settings.

In the present invention, by displaying data by address, data of distributed input/output units can also be displayed.

In the present invention, the user can arbitrarily select input/output data, so that only the necessary data is displayed on the input/output display.

[0021]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

(Embodiment 1) Fig. 1 shows the appearance of a display according to an embodiment of the present invention, Fig. 2 shows its circuit configuration, and Fig. 3 shows the processing flow. A PLC (programmable controller) performs calculations, outputs data to an output unit after the calculation is completed, and then collects input data. These processes are performed as follows:
Everything in the PLC is managed by the CPU, which also controls input and output data.

1 shows the minimum configuration of this embodiment, which has two sets of input/output data displays 102 and 103, display unit position dedicated displays 105 and 107, and operation switches 106 and 108. The display 101 displays the PLC status. The display 111 displays the type of data selected by the operation switch 104 and displayed on the displays 102 and 103.

Incidentally, these input/output data display devices 10
2, 103, display unit position dedicated display 105, 10
It is preferable to provide two sets of the operation switches 7 and 106, 108 in order to confirm the relationship between the input and the output, but one set may also be used. The operation switches 106, 108 constitute an input means.

In FIG. 2, data from an input point 204 (operation switch 106 or 108) is input to a buffer 207 via a switch input circuit 201.
The signal is input to the CPU from the switch input circuit 20.
Reference numeral 1 denotes a circuit for recognizing that the operation switch 106 or 108 has been operated. A plurality of LEDs 205 (input/output data display 102 or 103) for displaying input/output data are driven by an input/output display register 202. A seven-segment numeric display 206 (display unit position dedicated display 105 or 107) is driven by a display position register 203. These registers are controlled by the CPU
The data is set via the buffer 207.

If one cycle of the collection flow is sufficiently short, the switch input circuit 201 will have a circuit configuration that stores only the change in the signal, but if it is long, it is necessary to have a circuit that counts the number of changes.
1 is configured to be automatically reset by hardware when input information is read by the CPU.

The numeric display 206 (display unit position dedicated display 105 or 107) uses a seven-segment display to indicate the slot position of the unit currently displayed on the input/output data display by the displayed numbers. However, other displays may be used.

In this configuration, the process flow will be described with reference to the flowchart in Figure 3. In the initial process (initial setting process) (S301), the positions of the units for displaying input/output data are determined, and data for each unit is collected (S302). Next, switch state collection (S303) is performed to determine whether or not an instruction to display data for units other than those to be displayed that was determined in advance in the initial process (S301) has been given from the operation switches 106, 108.
If the step S308 has not been operated, the data of the unit determined by the initial processing from the data collected in the step S302 is input to the input/output display register 202, and
The data indicating the position is written to the display position register 203 and displayed (S304).
After the output data is updated, the process returns to step S302 to collect input data, and then collects the states of the operation switches 106 and 108.

If the collected operation switches 106, 10
If the state of the operation switches 106 and 108 indicates that they have not been operated, new data for the same unit as the previous time is written into the input/output display register 202 and the display position register 203. If the state of the operation switches 106 and 108 indicates that they have been operated,
According to a predetermined rule such as advancing the order of the units for which data should be displayed, new data of a unit different from that of the previous time is written to the input/output display register 202 and the display position register 203.

In the example shown in Fig. 1, the input/output data display has only 32 points per set, and if a unit with more points than that is installed, it cannot display any more. Therefore, when the number of points that can be displayed is exceeded, the number is divided according to the number of points that can be displayed (32 points in this invention) and displayed.

An embodiment of this configuration will be described with reference to FIG.
FIG. 4 differs from the configuration shown in FIG. 2 in that it includes a timer 405 for measuring the display time, a switching circuit 408, and a display position register 404, but the other configurations are the same as those in FIGS. 2 and 4.

[0032] The operation of the embodiment shown in Fig. 4 will now be described. Divided input/output data for as many units as can be displayed is written to display register 402, and the division position and mounting position corresponding to the written input/output data are written to 404 and 403, respectively. A timer 405 is started from the time of writing, and the display showing the mounting position and the division position are displayed in a time-division manner, for example, with the mounting position data for 5 seconds and the division position data for 1 second. This makes it possible to display the division position in a time-division manner on a single display dedicated to display slot position.

[0033] (Embodiment 3) Another embodiment will be described with reference to the configuration shown in Fig. 2. In Fig. 2, immediately before the display data is output (before S304 in Fig. 3), fault information is checked to see if there is any problem with the operation of the PLC (programmable controller). If there is no fault information, the operation described in embodiments 1 and 2 is carried out. However, if a fault has occurred, data representing the fault information is output as display data to input/output register 202 and displayed. This means that the PLC user does not need to prepare a separate display device for the fault information.

At this time, if the LED indicating that the fault information is being displayed is turned on (MENT of 111), it becomes easier to understand.
It is also possible to display fault information on the display 7.

Of course, a plurality of pieces of fault information can be switched and displayed by using the switches 106 and 108. In this case, a plurality of types of fault information are displayed on the display unit position dedicated display.

(Embodiment 4) Another embodiment will be described with reference to the configuration shown in FIG. 2. In this embodiment, a memory element in which the user can set data and a switch for switching the display are required. This is achieved by using a specific address location in the memory that is normally included in a CPU unit and a switch 104.
(Figure 1) can be used.

2, immediately before outputting the display data (S304 in FIG. 3), it is confirmed whether the switching information set by the user with the switch 104 is for displaying input/output data or for displaying data set by the user. If it is for displaying input/output data, it operates as in the first and second embodiments, and if it is for displaying data set by the user, the data set in the memory by the user is output as display data.

[0038] In this way, for example, if the memory data is changed according to the control stage using a program, then by outputting this memory data, it is possible to check on the display what control the PLC is currently performing.

(Example 5) PLC using a CPU
(Programmable controllers) manage input and output data centrally in memory.

Thus, for example, in switch 104:
If the display unit position can be set to an address, input/output data in the memory can be output to the display. In this case, the switches 106 and 108 are used to specify the address. Then, the display 105 and
07 will display the address.

In this way, since the input/output data can be confirmed at the CPU unit, the input/output data of input/output units installed at distant locations can also be confirmed at one location.

(Embodiment 6) Another embodiment will now be described. The user can display input/output data at any position by setting the switches 106 and 108. To achieve this, the user's settings are confirmed immediately before the display data in FIG. 2 is output. According to the user's settings, data is collected bit by bit from the input/output data in the memory and output as display data.

[0043]

As explained above, the present invention has the effect of being able to display a large amount of data with a small number of display functions, and of making it easy to check the display of input/output units in remote locations and only the necessary data.
Since there is no need to provide a display unit in the input/output unit, the input/output unit can be made smaller.

[0044] Furthermore, the control state and fault information of the PLC can be checked by using the display, which becomes unnecessary after the normal operation check is completed.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing the appearance of a display device of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flow chart showing the process of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing another configuration of the present invention.

5A and 5B are diagrams showing the external appearance of a conventional display device, in which (a) is a diagram of a building block type and (b) is a diagram of a block type.

[Explanation of symbols]

101 Display 102, 103, 205, 407 Input/Output Data Display 105, 107, 206, 409 Display Unit Position Dedicated Display 201, 401 Switch Input Circuit 202, 402 Input/Output Display Register 203, 403 Display Position Register 204, 406 Switch 207, 410 Buffer 405 Timer 408 Switching Circuit

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Claims (6)

(57) [Claims] [Claim 1] In an input/output display device having a CPU unit for collectively managing input/output data and one or more input/output units, the CPU unit is provided with: a memory element for storing the input/output data; an input/output data display device for displaying the stored input/output data; input means for designating an input/output unit among the one or more input/output units for which input/output data should be displayed; a memory element for storing data indicating the position of the input/output unit input by the input means; and one or more display unit position dedicated display devices for displaying the data indicating the position of the input/output unit stored in the memory element,
13. An input/output display device, comprising: a display unit that enables the user to confirm which position of said one or more input/output units the input/output data being displayed on said input/output data display unit belongs to. [Claim 2] An input/output display device according to the invention of claim 1, further comprising a counter for measuring a display time, and a switching circuit for switching the position display content displayed on the display unit position dedicated display in a time-division manner based on the output of the counter, thereby indicating which data at which position the currently displayed input/output data is. [Claim 3] In the invention according to claim 1 or 2,
13. An input/output display device comprising: means for detecting a fault; and displaying the detected fault details on said input/output data display. 4. An input/output display device according to any one of claims 1 to 3, further comprising: storage means in which a user can set any data; and switching means, said switching means displaying the arbitrary data set by the user. 5. An input/output display device according to any one of claims 1 to 4, further comprising a switching means for switching between displaying input/output data and displaying memory, and for displaying data at any address in the memory. 6. An input/output display device according to any one of claims 1 to 5, further comprising a means for arbitrarily selecting input/output data, and displaying only necessary data.