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Setting up a Micro800 PLC

Requirements

  • Allen-Bradley Edition or Ultimate Edition
  • Compatible Micro800 PLC with Ethernet connection
  • Connected Components Workbench

Sample Project

Sorting by Height with Micro820

This tutorial gives you step-by-step instructions on how to use a Micro820 PLC to control Factory I/O. These same steps apply to Micro850.

Setting up communication between PC and PLC

  1. Connect the PLC to the network.

  2. Start RSLinx and open the driver configuration dialog by selecting Communications > Configure Drivers... from the menu.

    open driver configuration

  3. Add an EtherNet/IP driver.

    add ethernet/ip driver

  4. You should now be able to find the controller under the newly added driver.

    device found

Connecting Factory I/O to the PLC

  1. In Factory I/O click on FILE > Driver Configuration to open the Driver Window.

    open driver window

  2. Select Allen-Bradley Micro800 from the driver drop-down list.

    select micro820 driver

  3. Open the driver Configuration Panel by clicking on CONFIGURATION.

  4. Insert the controller's IP address into the Host field. On this panel, you can also define how many I/O Points to use, as well as the controller's tags they reference.

    driver config

    Each I/O point name (e.g. BOOL_IN_0) represents an existent PLC tag. It is defined by setting a Prefix (1) and an Offset (2) index which will be added to the prefix for each point created (e.g. BOOL_IN_3). Count defines the number of I/O points to use for each data type. You may choose any prefix you wish, as long as each I/O point has a matching tag defined on the PLC.

    See Micro820 Configuration

  5. Press Esc to return to the main driver window. Now, click on CONNECT to connect to the PLC. A successful connection is indicated by a green icon with a tick near the selected driver, as well as on the right side of the status bar.

    tag error

    When connected to a PLC, non-existent tags or tags with an error are grayed out. Hover the mouse cursor over a grayed-out point to get relevant information about the error.

Creating Tags in Connected Components Workbench

  1. Open a project in Connected Components Workbench.

  2. Open the global variables editor by Double Left-clicking on Global Variables in the Project Organizer.

    global variables

  3. Add a new tag with BOOL_IN_0 as name, and BOOL as a data type. Continue adding tags until each one has a matching input I/O point in Factory I/O.

    create tags

  4. Now, repeat the same process and add BOOL_OUT_0 up to BOOL_OUT_15. These will match the output I/O points of Factory I/O.

  5. Select Device > Download... to send the new program to the PLC.

    download to the plc