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Transition from Concept to Unity Pro

A - Conversion

Conversion FAQ For application conversion from Concept to Unity, please read the FAQ document provided. It provides important information on the different behaviour and ergonomics, which are not documented in this short “Getting-Started” help document. You can find this document after the installation of Unity via the hyperlink included in the overall Unity Pro Help. The description itself is located in the folder ...\Schneider Electric\UnityPro\PunitHelp\<language_number>\addendum.html Conversion issues addressed are: Section Control, Concept EFBs, In-Out variables, and LD execution order…

B - Ergonomics

Right mouse click option Use the right-mouse click to call the pop-up selection of object related functions on an object (e.g. create a section/operator screen/animation table…).

Button Bars and Menu changes The Button Bar (below the main menu entries) and the content of the main menu and inside the menu (Edit, View, Service) changes, depending on the object being edited or the function being active, i.e..: during editing a FBD section, the button bar provides helpful buttons to directly place special functions. Picture 1 below shows the Second Button Bar with the Project Browser having the focus. The button pressed is for displaying the “Structural View”.

Picture 1

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Picture 2 below shows the same screen, but with the focus on the ST section to be edited. The Second Button Bar shows buttons, which will insert text objects in the ST section, applying the Syntax needed. i.e. “if-then-else”, “while”, “case”,…

Picture 2

Extended Key functionality Shortcuts are grouped and follow the Microsoft standard

Alt+ “Number”: Call tools F3-F7 (+ “shift”) are context sensitive F8-F12 are global functions Ctrl+ "character" are global functions

The shift key in combination with a shortcut executes the inverse operation of the shortcut.

Ctrl-Key feature while editing sections Keeping the Ctrl-Key pressed, while a function lock is selected and placed, allows that function block to be placed a second time.

Placing Function Blocks efficiently

a) To place a function block in an editor, use the right mouse-click and the entry "Data Selection" to select (and place) a function block.

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b) A second method is to open the “Types Library Browser” available in the main

menu under TOOLS or directly via ”ALT” + “3”. Select a function block out of the library and drag & drop it directly onto the editor.

C - Differences to Concept Addressing Mode

In Concept “flat addressing” by (0x, 1x, 3x and 4x) registers is used. In Unity Pro this addressing can still be performed by using %Mx , %Ix, %IWx, %MWx for 0x, 1x, 3x and 4x addresses. A second type of addressing is introduced in Unity Pro, the “topological addressing”. This is the addressing of I/O points by the position of the module placed in the rack, where the address consists of “bus”.”drop”.\”rack”.”slot”.”word”.”bit”. Tip: The state ram viewer is accessible from the configuration screen of the Quantum CPU. It gives the equivalence between the flat address and the topological address. The addressing is also given in the project browser with number in front of the bus, the drop, the rack and the module. Picture 3 shows the State Ram Viewer.

Picture 3 Use for IO addresses the topological addressing. The correct address for each module is displayed in the bottom tab of the open module window for the selected module in the hardware configurator.

Ebool + Bool In Concept only Bool variables are available. Unity Pro uses two different variable types for bit information: BOOL and EBOOL.

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Whereas BOOL is the IEC it on / off type, EBOOL brings other features like edge management (it embeds the history of the bit) and forcing capability. Be aware that all hardware Bit-Variables must be of the type EBOOL

Build (Compiling the project)

In Unity the project is built offline. In Concept the actual machine code is generated during the download. The most efficient method to develop a project is to perform an initial “Rebuild All Project” after the project settings and configuration are selected.During section editing and defining of variables a “build”, which only builds the changes is sufficient. But be aware, that once the project is downloaded to the PLC (or Converter) and you are connected every “build” will be directly downloaded to the PLC without having to start an option like “Download Changes” as in Concept.

D - New The functional view

In Concept it is possible to group sections, however the groups can not be exported and imported. Unity Pro provides improved section group functionality. Sections can be grouped in functional entities, totally independent of the execution order. In Picture 4 you can see that the structure view (on the left) displays the sections as they are executed, whereas the functional view allows a logical grouping of the sections, totally independent of any execution order restraints. The functional entities can be exported and imported.

Picture 4

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Integrated small HMI solution Unity includes integrated Operator screens (like an animated PowerPoint slide). A complete library (drive, conveyer..) of predefined objects is available.

Drag & Drop features Drag & Drop features from the data editor (variables) into the logic editors is supported.

Bit extraction and Evaluation on input-pins In Unity it is possible to directly use bits of words in the logic, without having them extracted by a function block like “word-to-bit”. Simply put “word1.1” at the input pin of a function block and “bit1” of “word1” is taken as the input. It is also possible to put "ST statements" at input pins. This means, you can directly put a statement like “a+b” at an integer pin, where “a” and “b” would be two integers and their sum would be the input.