Creating a Hardware Interface File

A hardware interface file defines the type and arrangement of hardware resources that constitute a controller node. For example, a controller node could take the form of a standalone FAC-2100 device, as shown in Figure 4.1. Alternatively, a controller node could be made up of several Chameleon modules as shown in Figure 2.4. This section provides a description of how the document illustrated in Figure 2.4 was created.

Figure 4.1. Hardware interface file for stand-alone FAC-2100 controller.

Step 1.Create and Name a New Hardware Interface Document

New Document
To create a hardware interface file, choose the New Document item from the File menu (or press the New Document button on the speed bar menu). Then, select the Hardware Interface item from the New Document dialog of Figure 4.2. Design Pad G4 will create a blank hardware interface document, as shown in Figure 4.3. Each window in the Design Pad G4 client area holds a distinct document, allowing you to work on multiple documents simultaneously. A tab control below the toolbar menu, allows you to quickly select a desired document from all of the currently open documents. You can also switch between documents by simultaneously pressing the CTRL-TAB keys.

Figure 4.2. New document dialog.

Figure 4.3. Design Pad G4 environment with blank hardware interface document.

Save Document

Open Document

Before you begin adding controller modules to the hardware interface document, first use the Save Document As item in the File menu to name your configuration document and save it to disk. In the File Open/Save dialog shown Figure 4.4, name your blank hardware interface document 'Figure1.hwi' and press the Save button. Be sure to regularly save your documents to disk as you develop and make changes to your designs. To save documents, use the Save Document item in the File menu; to retrieve them, use the Open Document item in the File menu. (As an alternative to using the menu items, you may press the speed-bar buttons shown to the left.)

Figure 4.4. Save As dialog box

Design Pad G4 maintains a list of recently opened documents. To open a document that you have used recently, select the Recent Files item in the File menu. A sub-menu will appear listing the most recently opened documents. If the document you wish to open is on the list, select it. (You can change the number of entries in the recent-file list in the Preferences dialog---see section 14.1.2.)

Design Pad G4 has an auto-recovery feature designed to recover unsaved changes to documents after an abnormal program termination. When the auto-recovery feature is enabled (see section 14), Design Pad G4 saves copies of open documents at regular intervals. When you first execute Design Pad G4, it checks to see if it terminated abnormally during a prior session (e.g., due to power interruption). If it detects an abnormal termination, it prompts you if you would like to attempt to recover unsaved changes to documents.

Design Pad G4 can also automatically create a back-up copy of a hardware interface document before saving any changes to the file. For example, when you save changes to the Figure1.hwi file, Design Pad G4 first makes a copy of the existing file (and saves the copy as Figure1.bwi) before overwriting Figure1.hwi with any changes made to it. This feature could be useful if you have saved changes to a document but later decide you want to discard those changes and revert to the back-up version of the schema. To disable the auto-backup feature, see section 14.1.2.

NOTE: Schema documents use .scm as the file extension and .bcm as the backup file extension. Human-Machine Interface (HMI) documents use .hmi as the file extension and .bmi as the backup file extension. Workspace files (.dpw, .wbk) contain the file structure and network configuration information for the project The workspace environment (.wen) files save the program file layout and position. The .run files are created during schema compilation. They contain the executable program which runs on the Fairmount Automation hardware. If you need to revert to a backup version of a document, locate the appropriate file and change its backup extension to its original extension.


Step 2.Insert Controller Modules
You can now begin configuring the controller hardware by inserting desired hardware modules into the blank document of Figure 4.3. The Controllers menu contains all the hardware modules supported by Design Pad G4, grouped by product family (e.g., Chameleon, FAC-2100, Smart Valves, External Devices, etc.).

To duplicate the controller configuration shown in Figure 2.4, select the 25W AC Power (ACP-1) item, in the Controllers  Chameleon menu. An image of the faceplate of the Chameleon ACP-1 module will appear in the blank document. As you select the other modules shown in Figure 2.4 from the Controllers  Chameleon menu, their corresponding faceplate images will be appended in the rightmost position. If you would like to rearrange the module order in the controller node, you can simply click on a module and drag it to the desired position.

Step 3.Label each Controller Module
Design Pad G4 assigns each hardware module a default label as they are inserted into the document. You can modify the default label by clicking the right mouse button on the appropriate module and selecting the Module Options item from the drop-down menu. Try right-clicking on the PCM-1 module, bring up the Module Properties dialog box, and enter "PCM-1" in the Module Name edit control. Do the same for the ACP-1, DAM-1, and NIM-1 modules. Note that different settings are available for each module type, but all provide a Module Name setting. The configuration settings available for each module type are described in detail in their specific Instruction Bulletins.