- [Instructor] There's also an even more automated process
to help us insert our PLC's.
So say, for example, we use a whole lot of PLC's
and PLC design within our electrical projects,
maybe it's worth really diving deep into the automation
tools and then I can almost fully automate this process.
So I can generate almost all my PLC drawings with just a
single click of a button.
So, let's take a look at how to do this.
In this case, I'm going to try to pretty much recreate
exactly what we did in the last lesson,
but I'm going to try to do it with
just a single click of a button.
So, first I'll want to jump into my project tab.
And I want to jump into my PLC manager.
So this we saw briefly before, is the management tool
of our PLC's, this is going to show us all of our PLC's
in this existing project as well as
each and every pin of those PLC's.
Currently I can see this project as really no PLC's in
it, quite yet, so let's take a look at that one
and go to Add PLC.
I add PLC Mark which with be first without a
manufactured part, or PLC Manufacturer part,
so first I'm going to add the manufacturer part
and then add the symbols later on.
So either of those, whichever your preference,
I'll start with PLC manufacturer part.
So it's just going to first ask me what
manufactured part do I want.
Again, I'm going to search for all my PLC's
and I'm going to use the same one we just used,
that was this Schnieder electric component
with the 36 pins.
So I'll add that one to my project here.
And now we see our first PLC added to this project
and again, just named N1 here.
I click on it, I'll see all of the existing pins
on that manufacturer part.
So from here, is where I'm going to control
each and every pin, what I'd like it to do,
what name I'd like to give it, and so on.
So, first things first, again, same as before,
I think I wanted my first my power inputs turned on
as well as maybe my first four inputs.
I'm just going to grab each of these guys.
Right click, and again, similar as before,
I want to choose add a new PLC input/output.
That's really just turning this on.
I do want to use these specific pins.
Once turned on, we'll see there's slight changes here.
We have a bit more information and things like that.
Same idea, I didn't necessarily need any of these pins,
but I want a couple of my outputs as well.
Maybe I want my first seven output pins,
so I'll grab those just the same, right click,
Add a new PLC Input/Output, and those have added in as well.
Then just as we did editing the descriptions,
I can do the exact same here.
I can change the address,
change whatever information I'd like.
I'm just going to change the description again.
Something like stop.
And start.
Cylinder one and cylinder two.
And the same with all the outputs or whatever other pins
you'd like to give a description for.
So essentially what I've done is I've just
turned a bunch of these inputs on,
I also have the ability, this can be very handy,
to associate macros.
So what this means is that I can actually automatically
wire my PLC's again with just a click of a button.
So I can use the default, that's going back to
what my PLC configuration and default macro may be.
If I just click on this and choose any macro I'd
like or delete any macro, don't use any macro.
Let's try select a macro.
Then I got to tell it exactly what macro I'd like to use.
I can use any of these, maybe in this case my start
and my stop, just a push button or something like that.
So maybe I want to use something like this,
normally open contact.
And same idea here.
Select a macro, think I'll select the same.
And just an example for pin number three,
if I don't want any macro I'll just jump in here
and say do not use a macro at all.
And maybe this one as well, do not use a macro.
So I can set up whatever macros I'd like
and hopefully we'll see these will automatically come in
all wired up to our PLC inputs.
And of course, I can do the exact same with the outputs.
So now I am about half way through, couple other things
I want to finish off.
First of all, what configuration, what PLC
configuration am I using?
Again, this jumps back to that project configurations
PLC drawings.
And you know, which exact configuration I would like to use.
Maybe in this case I'll use 12 channels per page,
maybe at your specific company standard that you'd be using.
And again, that's just telling you what your symbols
going to look like, what attributes are coming in,
all of the information that's coming in is controlled here.
Maybe I'll try to use this 12-channels per page.
Again, just one of the SOLIDWORKS defaults.
So jump back to the project PLC's.
PLC Manager, here we are.
And I just want to change that configuration to
the SOLIDWORKS default of 12-channels per page.
Most likely in your project you'll use your own
company standard for the PLC there.
Next, I'll want to turn on or off
maybe a couple pins I'm not using.
So again, maybe in my symbol I only wanted the first couple
power terminals and the first couple inputs.
Let's say the first eight.
And then after that I9 to IG maybe here,
I'm not really using and I don't even really want them
coming into my symbol or my schematic.
I can just grab each of those, right click,
and say show or hide, depending if I want to show or hide.
In this case I'll say hide.
Notice the little flashlight is turned off there
so these won't be printed out on my schematics.
And I'll do the same for my outputs.
I'll leave the first seven on, and maybe these last four.
I'll just right click and hide as well.
Okay, so looking good here.
Now I think I've thrown in pretty much everything I want.
Of course I can throw in descriptions and macros
for my outputs and everything else,
as much information as I may require.
I think I'm all good here.
The only other last step I may want
to do is add page breaks.
So depending where I'd like to break up my inputs
or outputs or whatever it might be.
Maybe I only want three pins per page, or six pins per page
before it breaks onto the next.
In this case I want all of my inputs on my one page,
so it'd be eight or so inputs.
And then I'm going to do a page break,
and then all of my outputs.
So how can I do a page break?
First I want to jump to the final input here,
so that would be my I8.
That will be shown on my symbol.
And I can just right click there
and I have an option for Add page break after.
So that means after input eight I'm going to break this
symbol into the next page.
And here I have my little page break symbol there.
So if I've done everything correctly here,
and I'm going to insert a new PLC,
based on my 12-channel per page configuration,
so that would be the size and the shape and what not,
it will have a few of my inputs turned on with description
values, and a few of those with macros as well.
It will then have some empty inputs,
there'll be a page break after I8,
and then it will show seven or so outputs,
none of those have descriptions or anything like that.
So hopefully, if I've done everything right,
I can just now click the button.
So I can jump over to generate drawings here,
and that's just going to add all of my PLC drawings
to my existing project.
So I'll say Okay.
And it's just generating those drawings now.
So you can see how this can really be useful
and time saving.
So for example, if you had a whole number of PLC's
and some of them having a hundred pins or so,
you could generate essentially 10, 20 PLC drawings
and schematics all in one go, one click of a button,
once it's all set up.
So it's now added these two new drawings
automatically for me, eight and nine.
Let's take a look.
There's my page number eight, that's my inputs,
if I zoom in a little bit here,
we can see my inputs here, these are those macros
that I selected, so they're automatically being wired up
to my inputs.
I have my first input, four inputs turned on,
stop, start, cylinder one, cylinder two, and so forth.
It's going up to input number eight
and then it's page breaking to
my PLC outputs on the next page.
Jump into my page nine here.
And there I see my PLC outputs,
which are again, automatically being wired up to the
default macro in this case, which look like it was
been set to just a relay coil for that specific
12-pin per page configuration that we used.