Rockwell Automation Updates Studio 5000 Software With Auto-Generated Diagnostics and More

Recently, the company released the latest update to its Studio 5000 Logix Designer software.

 

Rockwell's Studio 5000 software. Image courtesy of Rockwell Automation. 
 

The Studio 5000 software is a part of Rockwell’s FactoryTalk DesignSuite. The platform was built to enable control engineers or system architects to design their factory automation systems much more rapidly and with ease. 

Users can benefit from an integrated engineering environment where design processes can be referenced, content can be reused, and data can be shared between engineering tools. 

 

Studio 5000 Design Software

Studio 5000 is a family of integrated software including:

• Studio 5000 Application Code Manager - for the creation, publication, and sharing of libraries of usable code.
• Studio 5000 Logix Designer - for the configuration and programming of Logix projects.
• Studio 5000 Architect - for designing and building a control system framework.
• Studio 5000 View Designer - to develop HMI screens for Rockwell’s latest graphics terminals.
• Studio 5000 Emulate - for project testing in a virtual environment.

 

Updates to Studio 5000 Logix Designer Software

Updates have been made to version 33 of the Studio 5000 Logix Designer software to enhance productivity. 

Tag properties have been extended to allow engineers to maximize the use of contextual data for building more powerful and descriptive HMIs. This new capability is hoped to reduce programming time. While engineers are working offline or are undertaking sequential downloads, they can preserve online controller tag values. 

This eliminates the need to re-establish them and can minimize disruptions to projects while making essential changes. Devices supported by the updated Studio 5000 Logix Designer software will receive automatically generated diagnostics providing engineers with more detailed and contextualized diagnostics without engineers developing them. 

 

The new Studio 5000 Logix Designer. Image courtesy of Rockwell Automation. 

 

In addition to these updates, Rockwell aims to help engineers further enhance and accelerate process projects by providing them with the option of combining its Allen-Bradley ControlLogix and CompactLogix process controllers with Studio 5000 Logix Designer. 

This pairing of the company’s hardware and software can help engineers save time and reduce compliance work by including embedded process instructions. Prebuilt task models are also available, improving the speed with which projects are created and consistency across projects. The models come preconfigured and use standard naming conventions.

Another update to the Logix Designer software enables engineers to connect highway addressable remote transducer (HART) devices just like they might connect to Ethernet/IP devices. Another feature of the software is that it can be utilized with the iTRAK 5730 small-frame system, allowing engineers to work in other applications such as primary packaging in food and beverages. The software can also be used in applications requiring an Allen-Bradley ControlLogix 5580 redundant capability.