LAB 2: INTRODUCTION TO OPENPLC

Estimated Time: 3 hours

Purpose: The purpose of this Lab exercise is to familiarize the student with the OpenPLC.

Objective: You will use the OpenPLC editor to write ladder logic and save in a format to
upload to the OpenPLC. You will use the OpenPLC runtime on a Windows PLC connected to
a Arduino Uno as a slave device (for input and outut). Your PLC will monitor two buttons and
control an LED.

Lab Setup and Requirements: The student will need to have installed the OpenPLC runtime
for Windows, the OpenPLC editor, and a Arduino Uno plus bread board.

Web version of lab: https://www.openplcproject.com/reference-your-first-project

Step 1: Connect your Arduino Uno to your PC. The Aruduino Uno schematic and pin out are
here: https://www.openplcproject.com/getting-started-arduino (scroll all the way down).

Step 2: Start the OpenPLC runtime. Find OpenPLC in your computer’s start menu and select
the OpenPLC runtime.

Step 3: Start your browser and log into the OpenPLC web interface. The IP address for the
OpenPLC web interface is http://0.0.0.0:8080 (localhost:8080).

 Credentials: user: openplc, password: openplc (you can create your own account).

Step 4: Add a slave device for the Arduino Uno. Follow the instructions here:
https://www.openplcproject.com/getting-started-arduino

Step 5: Start the Arduino IDE.

 Load the OpenPLC firmware.

Step 5: Build the circuit shown in Figure 1 on your bread board.

Tips:

1. The figure shows a generic OpenPLC. You are connecting to pins on the Arduino Uno.

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 2. There is no resistor shown before between the LED and the PLC. Add one to avoid
burning your LED. Use between a 1K – 10K ohm resistor. The lower the resistance the
brighter the LED.

3. R1 and R2 are pull down resistors. All input pins that you use should have a pull down
resistor between 1K and 10K ohms. Note: without the pull down the pin will “float”.
This will cause unpredictable behavior which is unpredictable and therefore hard to
debug.

4. The pin numbers for Arduino Uno are slightly different. Use %IX100.0, %IX100.1 and
%QX100.0 (use the values in the OpenPLC editor).

Figure 1: Lab 2 Circuit

Step 5: Write your ladder logic.

 Use File -> New on the OpenPLC editor main screen, see Figure 2, to create a new
project.

o Create a folder first. Select this folder to hold your project files.

o Name your folder: “My First Project”

o Select the folder (don’t click into it)

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Figure 2: OpenPLC Editor Main Screen

After selecting your folder a “Create a new POU” window will pop up. See Figure
3.

 Leave the program name as program0.

Figure 3: New program pop up

Add your inputs and outputs to the variable window.

 Click the + sign to add a row to the list of variables.

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Figure 4: The variable window.

What we want to achieve with this program is that whenever PB1 is pressed, the
LAMP turns on, and remains on until PB2 is pressed. This is achieved by a simple
ladder logic latch circuit like this:

To create this circuit on the editor, start by adding a left power rail by clicking on
the power rail icon on the toolbar.

Adjust the left power rail pin count to 2 and stretch it a little bit so it can fit both
rungs comfortably. Then add a contact by clicking on the contact button on the
toolbar or by right clicking on the blank editor window and selecting Add-
>Contact. On the window that appears, under the "Variable" parameter, select
PB1 to associate your new contact with the variable PB1.

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Repeat the process to add two more contacts, one associated with PB2 and
another associated with LED. For the PB2 contact, select Negated as the modifier.
Finally, add a coil by clicking on the coil button on the toolbar or by right clicking
on the blank editor window and selecting Add->coil. Associate your new coil with
the LED variable, and add a right power rail to close the circuit. Position the
components in place so that they look like this picture:

The final step is to connect all the components by dragging their extremities to
form a line. Connect the left side of PB1 and LED contacts with the left power rail.
Connect the right side of PB1 with PB2, the right side of PB2 with the LED coil,
and the right side of the LED coil with the right power rail. Draw the parallel LED
contact circuit by connecting the right side of the LED contact with PB2. Your final
project should look like this:

This circuit initially has the LED powered off. When you press PB1 even for a small
instant, the circuit turns the LED on (given that PB2 is not pressed also). Once the
LED turns on, it bypasses the PB1 button on the circuit to turn itself on
continuously even after PB1 is not pressed anymore. This is a nice trick in ladder
logic, you can actually use outputs as contacts! Now, the only way to turn the LED
off is by pressing PB2. Since PB2 is a negated contact, it will open the circuit once
it is pressed, therefore turning off the LED.

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Now that your project is created it is a good time to test it before uploading it to
the OpenPLC Runtime. You can simulate the behavior of your program by clicking
on Start PLC Simulation on the tool bar.

When you click on that button your project is compiled using a similar process to
the OpenPLC Runtime. If there are any errors on your program, the compilation
will fail and you will be alerted about the errors on the Console panel at the
bottom of the screen. If the compilation succeeds, OpenPLC Editor will then start
running your code. To view your code running interactively, click on Debug
instance on the left panel:

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This will open a new window where you can see the electrical flow of your
program. Lines in green are activated, where lines in black aren't. You can force a
contact or coil to be activated or deactivated by right-clicking on it and selecting
either Force True or Force False. Try forcing PB1 to be true and observe the flow
path to the LAMP coil. Then force PB1 back to false and verify that LAMP is still
activated due to the latch circuit.

Apart from graphically viewing the electrical flow on the diagram, you can also
follow the data in each variable of your program at the Debugger panel on the
right side of the screen. You can add variables to the Debugger panel by clicking
on the glasses icon in front of each variable from the panel on the left. Also, by
double-clicking a variable on the Debugger panel you can see a graph in real-time
showing the current values of the variable. This can be really useful when your
program is counting steps or manipulating data.

Finally, after you have created and tested you program, the last step is to
generate your program in a format that the OpenPLC Runtime will understand. To
do that, simply click on Generate program for OpenPLC Runtime on the tool bar
and save the .st file on your computer. This file is your ladder logic program
written in a language that OpenPLC Runtime can understand.

Navigate to the OpenPLC web interface (localhost:8080 on your browser).

 Click Choose file and select your .st file.

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  Add a Name. It can be anything.
 Add a description. This is optional.
 Select “Upload program”
 The program will upload and compile.
 After compiling you will return to the main browser screen and select “Start
PLC” on the bottom left.

Your ladder logic should now be running.

 Tx/Rx LEDs on the Arduino Uno should be rapidly blinking.

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This document is licensed with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ©2017 Catalyzing Computing and Cybersecurity in
Community Colleges (C5).