Soft Oscilloscope Debugging

It can be interesting to access the values of the variables of the application. It is particularly important during development and debugging.

There is a way of visualizing and changing variables via the Graphics HMIClosed"Human-machine interfaces " Also known as computer-human interfaces (CHI), and formerly known as man-machine interfaces, they are usually employed to communicate with PLCs and other computers, such as entering and monitoring temperatures or pressures for further automated control or emergency response panel (see IEC 61131-3 Editor Debugging). You can also access and change variables via the Variable Dictionary (see Variable Monitoring).

However, these two methods can only access and change variables from the PLCClosed"Programmable Logic Controller" A Programmable Logic Controller, PLC, or Programmable Controller is a digital computer used for automation of industrial processes, such as control of machinery on factory assembly lines. Used to synchronize the flow of inputs from (physical) sensors and events with the flow of outputs to actuators and events part and not from the Motion part of the application. Furthermore, the temporal evolution of the Motion variables would not be very intuitive. The ideal tool to trace the Motion variables is a softscope.

Other typical areas for using the softscope are:

  • Recording when an input is sensed in a cycle
  • Recording how much correction is being made in each cycle
  • Checking the settling time of an axis

To open the Softscope, click the Oscilloscope command in the Tools Menu.

For more details on Softscope description and usage, refer to Soft Oscilloscope