CASE statement doubts

[OriolFM]

Hello all,

I'm quite new to PLC programming, but having learnt digital electronics and programming in PASCAL and C in the 90s, I'm trying to implement a Finite State Machine within an FX5u PLC to control an industrial automation. If it was something for myself that wouldn't require flexibility, I hard-wired it using logic gates, a counter, and latches for inputs and outputs, done several Karnaugh diagrams to simplify the circuit, and so on. If it did require flexibility and it was for a hobby, I'd probably gone for an Arduino or a simple program running in a raspberry pi. However, and since it's for work, I have to use the tools that my fellow co-workers use.

Now, in my company they use mostly Mitsubishi PLCs, but they tend to program everything in ladder and using huge, complex programs which are a pain to trace and debug, with a very slow execution time. They also tend to program in iterative steps, but they rely on a clean initial condition (meaning: if there is an error or a power cut, the operator of the machine must empty the material from the automation, home the robot, even reset all the cylinders to their initial positions (with a homing program activated from the HMI), and then restart the machine.

To prevent that, and make it more user-friendly, I'm thinking to implement a modular finite state machine where the different modules for the machine (material loading ports, doors, conveyors, robot) are all interlocked together. Having a background in PASCAL programming, it seems like going with ST language will be easier for me to get started in PLC programming.

To begin, I've declared a series of global variables for each module, called STATE_<module-name>_CURRENT and STATE_<module-name>_NEXT, all of them set as unsigned int words, so they can store an integer value and I can use them with a CASE statement.

Now, for clarity, I was planning on using global constants in those CASE statements. So, if I declare the constant ST_MACHINE_INIT as unsigned int word with value 0, typing ST_MACHINE_INIT should be the same as typing 0 in the CASE statement, and if ST_MACHINE_MANUAL_MODE is declared as a constant with a value of 1, it should be the same as typing 1, right? at least, in PASCAL (upon which the ST language seems to be based) would work like that. I have checked several manuals from Mitsubishi, but I didn't find anything in regard to that. They only say:

CASE <variable> OF
	<value1>:
      		<statement1>;
	<value2>:
      		<statement2>;
END_CASE;

However, I've noticed that when I use a constant as value1 (declared as global labels with an unsigned integer value, same as the variables), GX Works 3 is giving me syntax errors after OF and after the statements (represented as ~).

CASE <variable> OF~
	<value1>:
      		<statement1>;~
	<value2>:
      		<statement2>;~
END_CASE;

If I replace the constant by the integer value, the syntax error goes away. It seems, then, that GX Works is not accepting constants as values. Is that the case? I prefer to use constants or variables with a fixed, known value instead of just typing the integers for code clarity and because they allow for posterior modifications easily.

Does anyone have experience in this?

Thanks.

[Copyleft]

Have you tried use the e—Manual Viewer?

GX3>help>e-manual viewer or

Melsec iQ-F

FX5 Programing Manual (Program Design).

constant methods for expressing constants

Data type: String(32) 

enclose character strings with single quotation

example: Stest :=‘ABC’;

thats it are you looking for?

Edited December 25, 2019 by Copyleft

[OriolFM]

Yes, I did try the manual. I've also tried the PDFs for the GX Works 3 manual, the Structured Text Manual, the FX5 program design manual, and the FX5 application manuals.

Every place where they reference the <value> in a case statement, they don't specify if it can be a constant. A variable doesn't work because it is an expression and not a value, so I guess internally it's treating constants as expressions and not as values. The program works if I just type the integer for the constant value.

There was also another problem I figured out, which is that I can't use an unsigned word as an integer, the GX Works 3 will assume it's a 16-bit array instead, so it will give me a type mismatch error. After changing my variables to signed words, I had no more problems calling functions that require integer parameters, but still I couldn't use the constants in the CASE statement.

It's a pity, because the code is much more readable by using integer constants with significative names instead of just integer values.