- [Instructor] A PLC is an industrial computer
control system that can be programmed
to monitor inputs and make automated decisions
to control outputs.
Now these are very commonly used
within electrical systems, and can be pretty
large or complicated components.
Due to this, Solidworks Electrical has created
specific commands and tools to help us
improve and automate our PLC work.
So let's take a work at working with some PLCs here.
The first thing to note is that really a PLC
is just a special component, a little bit more
complex component.
But we can still insert symbols and treat it
as any other electrical component.
So one option I have, of course, is just again
go to my Schematic tab, go to Insert Symbol
just like any other symbol or component.
And let's browse for specific symbol,
and just like anything else, I can go to
Classification and find PLCs.
And I have a whole number of
PLC symbols that I can choose from here.
So these are what we'd call Static symbols
as they're not changing, they're just always static,
they're not growing or getting larger or smaller
or whatever it might be.
However, with PLCs we also have some more
complex dynamic symbols as we'll see in just a second.
So, if we don't want to go that route, of course
we can just insert a PLC just as we would
any other component, as we've learned up until now.
However, since PLCs are usually pretty large
and pretty complex, we have some tools to help
us with this as well.
So let me close out of this.
And similarly, if I go into my Schematic tab,
I see another button called Insert PLC.
So this is specifically built for PLCs
as they're fairly large components with a
whole bunch of different electrical connection points
we probably want to break up across multiple pages
and so on.
So I'm going to start with Insert PLC here.
It's going to ask me if I have any existing PLCs,
do I want to use my existing PLC
or do I want to create a new PLC
or whatever it might be.
In this case, I'm going to create new,
something from scratch.
Let's say Create a New PLC.
If it's your first PLC, you wouldn't get any
prompt asking you to create new
or use existing.
So now, I'm searching for a specific
manufacturer part, so I'm going to want to
search within PLCs most likely.
I can change my filters to specific manufacturer,
whatever it might be.
But I'm just going to search all my PLCs let's say.
And here in my library I only have a few
here by default.
So I have a couple of PLCs to choose from.
Let's say I want to grab this
Schneider Electric PLC.
And it looks like it has about 36 different
electrical connection points.
So quite a bit different than say a fuse
or a circuit breaker that maybe has
six or eight terminals.
PLCs, you know, could have 50, 80, 100 terminals,
whatever it might be.
So they're fairly large and complex components.
So I'm going to use this Schneider Electric component here.
I'll add that to my project and say Select.
And I can again fill out whatever property values
information I want to throw in here.
I can also jump into the manufacturer part
information again, it's going to be that
Schneider Electric part that I just threw in.
It shows me all the circuits as well,
so it looks like there's a couple power supply
circuits or terminals, a number of inputs
here we can see.
Looks like I have about 15 or 20 inputs,
and quite a few outputs as well.
That all looks okay with me.
I'll just keep all the information empty for now
and I'll just say Okay.
Now this is what I meant when I say it's
slightly different than a standard symbol.
So really, it's pretty much the exact same thing,
it's just a special symbol in this case.
So this is a dynamic symbol opposed
to the static symbols that we've been using
up until now.
So that means that since PLCs are very large,
let's say this one has about 36 different
electrical connection points, I probably can't
fit all of those connection points all on one page.
So maybe I need to throw 10 on one page,
10 on the next, 10 on the next, and so forth.
So this gives us a very nice and easy way
to break this up.
So here I have a number of tools and options
in my Dynamic PLC Insertion Tab here.
And essentially what I'm going to do is just
check-off whatever terminals or electrical
connection points I want to show up on the symbol.
And you can see as I do that, my symbol is
growing and growing and growing.
So if I try to throw-in 20 electrical connection
points all of a sudden, my symbol is actually
too large for my entire page.
So we can see why this is useful for our PLCs.
In a lot of cases, you'll break up, for example,
PLC inputs on one page and PLC outputs on another page.
So let's try to do exactly that.
So I'm just going to check off a bunch,
only the PLC inputs and the power supply as well.
Okay so I'm going to check off the first two.
Those would be my power supply.
And then maybe I'm only actually going to use
my first four or so, actually I'll turn on
maybe eight inputs.
So now I can see my symbol again dynamically changed
to hold couple of my power supply terminals,
couple of my input symbols here.
And a lot of times with a PLC, you use some of
the pins but not all of the pins.
So you can check on or off,
whichever ones you require, essentially.
Notice they don't need to be in order
or anything like that.
Either you can turn on or off,
depending on what you're using.
So in this case, I'm only going to use the power supply pins
and my first eight input pins.
What you can also do if you want to throw in
additional information, what I like to do sometimes
is I'll just grab, let's say I want eight pins
to show up, but I'm actually going to only really
be using maybe the first four.
So I'll grab those first four pins.
If I right-click here, I can say
Add a New Input Output.
And when I do that, you'll just see they kind of
become highlighted, and I have the new
monarch here and everything now.
It's essentially, I'm just assigning these pins
to be inputs or pins that I'm actually going to use.
So I just have more information available,
I can throw in more properties and things like that.
More information can come out on my final report.
So usually I'll turn that on for all of the pins
that I'm actually using within the PLC.
I have a number of other commands up here
within my tool.
For example, I can just change the direction
the PLC's coming in, if it's left or right
or whatever it may be.
I'll see my inputs on this page are coming in
from the left-hand side,
and then I'll place somewhere about here.
So now I can see there is my specialized symbol.
And now it's input those first eight pins or so.
And it's asking me in my tool, all the green
is indicating that these have been placed now,
and all the blue have not yet been placed,
would you like to place these remaining pins?
So as you can see, I can continue on
and I can do it on the same page.
I can jump to the next page.
Whatever it might be.
So maybe what I'd like to do now is
jump to a different page.
And I'll jump to say PLC outputs.
And now I can insert my PLC outputs.
So again, I'll have to jump back into
that same command.
I can jump to the insert PLC,
or I can jump over to my components list
and try to find my PLC here.
So then get to my N2 component.
And I'll just right-click there,
and again go to Insert PLC.
And I'm back into the dynamic PLC insertion command.
Again, just check off whatever I may require.
So now I'm looking for outputs.
Maybe I'll turn-off these inputs here,
and maybe I'm only going to use
the first seven outputs there.
And maybe for outputs I want them coming in
the opposite direction.
So I'll just flip my direction here,
and something like this for outputs.
And I'll place those on my right-hand side here.
And there's my outputs.
I can continue on, place whatever other pins
I may need, or I'll just finish off this command.
So that's really all there is to it.
It's just a more useful, more powerful command,
especially when dealing with very large symbols,
very large components, as I can break this up
across multiple pages.
In this case, I just broke it up into two.
But if you have a very large PLC,
maybe you're breaking your PLCs into four,
five, ten pages.
So now on page eight, I have my PLC inputs here,
about eight inputs or so.
And on my page nine, I have my PLC outputs,
about eight outputs or so.