Equipment phases

The equipment phase is the smallest building block used by the

Equipment Phase

Manager

.

Within the

Logix Designer

application, an equipment phase functions much like a program. In this sense, equipment phases:

The behavior of the equipment phase is defined by its state machine. This state machine is a roadmap that describes how the equipment phase operates. The equipment phase enforces the transitions between states and runs the appropriate state routine when in an active state. For example, when the equipment phase is in the RUNNING state, it executes the Running routine. Likewise, if it is in the HOLDING state, it executes the Holding routine.

Create state routines for any of the active states of the equipment phase. Active states include:

Logic for state routines

When the equipment phase state routines are created, write logic for each state in the Ladder Editor, the Sequential Function Chart Editor, the Structured Text Editor, or the Function Block Editor. This logic is referred to as phase logic. The

Logix Designer

application's

Equipment Phase

Manager

provides several instructions to support the development of phase logic.

Do not implement every active state. When you create an equipment phase, a controller scoped tag with the same name as the equipment phase is also created. This tag contains information on the state, sub state, owner, and other data related to the equipment phase. As the equipment phase executes, it updates this tag with its current state information.

The display of machine control states is driven from the data in the controller-scoped PHASE tag with the same name as the equipment phase. This controller-scoped tag has Producing and Standby bits to set in order to identify if the machine is in one of these sub states. Set and clear these bits at the appropriate time in the routine logic.

Applications that control equipment phases

Applications and programs can control the execution of equipment phases by sending them commands. These applications are referred to as sequencers. There are four types of sequencers that can command an equipment phase:

Input and output parameter tags for equipment phases

Configure input or output parameter tags for an equipment phase. Parameter tags modularize the equipment phase and document the required or expected inputs and outputs. Parameter tags provide a mechanism for sequencers to store input values and retrieve output values while commanding the equipment phase. If the equipment phase has parameter tags, the sequencer typically performs these operations: