TechNote 11

INTOUCH & applicom

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V1.0 15/01/2003 INTOUCH & applicom FLO & MLA DLE
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What is it and what is it for ?

It is a technical information to help you step by step to start Intouch through applicom.

APPLICOM INTOUCH TROUBLE-

SETTING SETTING SHOOTING

1 APPLICOM SETTING page 2

Equipment setting & test page 2
DDE setting page 3
DDE SERVER activation. page 4
DDE exchange test (excel) page 5
DDE server monitor page 6

2 INTOUCH SETTING page 7

INTOUCH setting page 7

3 TROUBLESHOOTING page 14
Your refresh period is too slowly (in intouch) ? page 14
How to monitor the cyclic function status ? page 15
How to optimize the exchanges ? page 16

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EQUIPMENT SETTING & TEST

In order to access with applicom to a physical device on the bus, you need to configure an “equipment” (in
relation with a PLC for exemple) :

Logically, this setting part is enough to get data… launch ReadWait to know if your setting is correct :

NOTA : When you push on

Read button, the status
must be equal to ZERO
(otherwise, you have done a
wrong setting, exept status
36….it mean you try to access
to a not defined equipment…).

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DDE SETTING
IF THE READWAIT STATUS IS EQUAL ZERO…the Equipment configuration is correct (because we can
access through ReadWait to the remote device), we have now to configure the DDE layer (Dynamic Data
Exchange from microsoft). This setting is located also in the console, just under the equipment setting. Per
default, an “image topic” (topic concerning a remote device) is defined with standard parameters :

Double clic in the Topic Configuration, and you will see the IMAGE TOPIC CONFIGURATOR :

In this window,
you can change
for exemple the
topic name…

The result is :

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DDE SERVER ACTIVATION

After the Equipment and DDE setting, you have to save (1) and run Pcinit (2) in order to initialyse the card with
all news parameteres :

1 2
Now, you have to start applicom DDE SERVER (launch DDE server, and let it in the background).
Open the applicom folder, go in DDE, and double clic on PCDDE :

That’s all for DDE…

now put it in the
background

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DDE EXCHANGE TEST

Logically, you have just one thing regarding applicom : PCDDE in the taskBar…

The DDE exchanges are composed by three things :

SERVER NAME
TOPIC NAME
ITEM NAME

PCDDE
SERVER NAME : applicom used the following server name (always !) :
TOPIC NAME : As we have defined in page 3, the topic name is TOTO
MW0 (you have
ITEM NAME : It is the variable name present in the PLC (exemple in a siemens PLC)
to consult the list of available items in the protocol manual you use)

Now, we are able to start an DDE exchange between the applicom DDE SERVER, and a DDE CLIENT.
= !
For exemple, in Microsoft Excel, i can used the following syntaxe (in Excel, “ ” “ ” “ ” are mandatory) :

=PCDDE TOTO!MW0

Server name Item name

Topic name

! !
CAUTION
USED ALWAYS
CAPITAL
CHARACTERS

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DDE SERVER MONITOR :

If you maximize applicom DDE SERVER present in your task bar, you’ll see Debug, and after Diagnostoc
counters… here, you can see what happen regarding each Topic (traffic, error…) :

Choose your
topic

Frames
quantity

Monitor
the
exchanges

Another monitor displaying is usefull : It is a FIFO stack regarding all Received Read function… with details.

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INTOUCH SETTING

Launch Intouch WindowMaker

Double click and add

an Access Name

Remote computer: if the

DDE server is located
in another computer.

DDE Server Applicom

Must be identical to topic

name that you have
configured in applicom
(care to syntax)

Server refresh active window

items, this option enable to
optimize communication

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You must see the

topic that you
have created

Now, you need to create a new

window to display data

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Push this button to

add commentary and
variables like this

You need to create a variable, you will link to « #### » text

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Specify a representative name

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When you
select 1
« Save »,
another
window
appears to
select an
access
name and
equipment
item

2
3

With this
operation you will
allocate « word0»
to « #### » text

See the next page

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To finish intouch settings, select Runtime

The value “24” is the value of the word 0 in your equipment.

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YOUR REFRESH PERIOD IS TOO SLOW ?

Small reminder regarding the global exchange… here is the mechanism to pick up de data in the PLC when a
Intouch ask something…

Applicom 4
Intouch card PLC

1 6 3
applicom
5
DDE
SERVER Bus / medium
2
1 : Intouch ask three differents ITEMS to the applicom server : MW0, DB400.DBW28 and B4.
2 : DDE server build 3 cyclic functions (no optimisation, because the data are not contiguous).
3 : applicom card send three frames on the bus to the remote PLC (always one frame per cyclic function).
4 : After one or several cyclic time period, the PLC ship back the answer.
5 : applicom card give the PLC answer to the DDE server.
6 : DDE server transfert data to the Inoutch disposal.

So…what you have to remember…

1
More you have a lot of points (not contiguous) …
… more you have cyclic functions …
… more you have frames / traffic on the bus ...
… more the PLC need time to send answers …
… more your Intouch view displays data SLOWLY !
2
One item Write command used one frame…
… there is no way to organize / optimise Write function !

For exemple, imagine applicom DDE server need 100 cyclic functions ( it mean 100 frames ), a PLC with a
refresh period about 50 ms; the result is about : 100*0.05 = 5 seconds !

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HOW TO MONITOR THE CYCLIC FUNCTION STATUS ?

Run VisuCyc.exe (in the tools folder) :

Select user
& system

When you push on star button, we “scan” the cyclic function activity.
Here, we have just one cyclic function, with a refresh period about 100ms. With one cyclic function, the traffic
is very light.

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HOW TO OPTIMIZE THE EXCHANGES ?

1 : Are you sure about the network quality ? When the communication is bad (too much collisions, retry, CRC
error…) you spend time to repeat request … PLC does not understand each request… Run ReadWait, select
“polling” and “stop/error”, and check if ReadWait stop automatically (because “stop/error” function freeze
ReadWait at the first error). You can see page 2 a readwait screen shot.

2 : Optimize the data ol cation in the PLC (more the data mapping is contiguous, less will be the frames
quantity).

3 : Maybe all point does not need to be refresh at 100ms…increase the Refresh period time in the Topic setting
(in the console) :

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