Crimson 3.x Allen Bradley L5K Plus – HMS Support Portal

This document describes how to use the Allen Bradley Native Tags via L5K File Plus driver

APPLICABLE PRODUCTS:

CR1000 series
CR3000 series
DA series Data Stations
Graphite series Controllers and HMIs
DA50 and DA70 FlexEdge Controllers

PRE-REQUISITES:

Crimson 3.1 build 3124.000 or higher, Crimson 3.2 build 3.2.0036 or higher.

IN THIS ARTICLE:

This driver supports communication with Allen Bradley CompactLogix and ControlLogix PLC systems.

The L5K Plus driver provides access to data items in ControlLogix and CompactLogix series PLCs via EtherNet IP using the PLC program's native tag names. You can access predefined factory data types (Boolean, Integer, Real, String, etc.), User Defined Types, Add On Instructions, and Aliases.

Note that direct I/O cannot be access by the driver. You must use an alias to access I/O on the PLC.

Procedure:

Create L5K File

The L5K Plus driver requires an L5K file to import the PLC's Native Tag information. The L5K file needs to be exported from your RSLogix/Studio 5000 project. To do this, open the PLC program and select File | Save As from the menu bar. In the Save As Type field, you need to set the Save As Type to RSLogix 5000 Import/Export File (*.L5K) from the drop-down list. Give the file a name and save it to the desired location.

Crimson Network Configuration

The driver requires a valid Network configuration. If you are using Crimson 3.1, in the Navigation Pane select the Communications section, select the Network item, and then select the desired Ethernet port to configure and set the IP address for your Crimson device.

For Crimson 3.2 applications, you configure the Network settings in the Device Configuration section in the Navigation Pane. Select the appropriate Ethernet port from the System Configuration | Network | Interfaces and configure its IP address as required.

Driver Configuration

In the Communications section, select a Protocol, and in the Driver Selection section click on the Pick button. In the Driver Picker dialog, select Allen Bradley for Manufacturer, and then select the Native Tags via L5k File Plus from the Driver list.

Select the device, and then set the IP Address of the PLC in the Target Device settings. The TCP port should be left at its default setting for most applications.

The Routing should be left Enabled for most applications, unless you have a model that does not support this. For a typical application where the CPU is in slot 0, the Routing Path can be left blank, it assumes rack port 1 and slot 0 by default. If you needed to change the slot number on a single rack system, you could enter rack port number, slot number, for example use 1, 2 to route to a CPU in slot number 2.

For more complex routing scenarios, refer to the tech note on Crimson 3.x: L5K V2 Routing Path. The same routing rules apply to the L5K Plus driver.

In the L5K File section, you need to import the L5K file you exported from your RSLogix/Studio 5000 project. To do that click on the Browse button and navigate to the L5K you exported.

Crimson Data Tag Creation

The L5K Plus driver has different tools that you can use to create mapped data tags. It has its own Create Data Tags tool, and it also supports using the Data Tag section’s export/import tools.

Create L5K Data Tags

To use the driver’s tool, in the Device Commands section click the link Create Data Tags. In the Create L5K Data Tags dialog, you can select the tags you want from the L5K Tags list on the left. You can either click an item and use the Add button, or double click it, to add it to the Create list on the right. You can select individual tag items as well as folders from the L5K Tags list and add them to the Create list. After you have added the items you want to the Create list, then you can click on the Create button. This will create a folder of mapped tags in the Data Tags section, with the name of that device at the top level, e.g., PLC1. It will also contain subfolders based on the folder paths in the L5K file. This enables you to build a Crimson tag database using the same naming structure you are using in the PLC.

It is important to note that the data tags in this folder are in effect managed by the driver’s creation tool. You can use this tool to both add and remove mapped tags from the Crimson Data Tags section. If you select Remove in the Create L5K Data Tags dialog, then click on the Create button, it will both remove any tags you removed from that list, as well as add any new ones you may have put in that list.

If you had made any changes to any folders and/or tag names that were in that parent PLC1 folder, those will be removed and replaced by the new ones you created when you click on the Create button. Keep in mind that everything in this PLC1 folder is managed by the driver’s Create tool if you are using it.

However, if you move any mapped tags out of this parent PLC1 folder, then they are no managed by the driver. The Remove and Create buttons only affect Data Tags that are still in the device’s parent PLC1 folder.

Data Tag Export/Import

The L5K Plus driver also works with the Data Tag section’s export and import tools. The previous L5K Enhanced V2 driver had issues with this because you still had to add driver tags manually in the driver to its available addresses list. The L5K Plus does not require this list. Once the L5K file has been imported, any mapped data tags that are valid for that L5K file will work. This means you can use the Data Tag section’s tools to clone mapped data tags for another device. If you have a new device uses the same L5K file, cloned tags for the new device will be able to map to the new device. Also note this Data Tag export/import feature was updated with the release of this driver to support exporting and importing Crimson data tags at the folder level.

Upgrading from Older L5K and Native Tag Drivers

The Native Tags via L5K Plus driver can be used to upgrade existing applications that were initially done using the Native tag Addressing V1.01, Native Tags via L5K V1.04, and Native Tags via L5K Enhanced V2/01 drivers. The upgrade process is similar for any of the older AB Native Tag drivers.

On the protocol you want to upgrade, click on the Driver Pick button, and select the L5K Plus driver. At this time you will likely see the Errors indicator on the task bar illuminate in red to indicate there are invalid mapped data tags.

Click on the device, and reset its IP address to the correct target address for that PLC. Note that if you had a custom Routing Path defined in the previous driver, you would also need to re-enter it as well. Then click on the L5K File Browse button, and re-import the L5K file for this device. At this time, if the L5K file is valid for all the tag mapped to that device, the Errors indicator should no longer be red.

If the Errors is still red, that may indicate you had issues in the older driver due to changes made in the PLC project. One of the issues with the older V2 Enhanced driver was that it would not validate a new L5K import file against the available address list or any mapped tags. Therefore, changes made in the PLC could result in bad tag mappings. That is no longer a problem with the L5K Plus driver. As soon as you import the new L5K, all existing tags mapped to that device are validated for the new L5K file.

Additional info:

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