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PLC Automation Consultancy & Training | Liam Bee

Learn PLC automation properly, through structured courses, deep technical guides, and industrial consultancy.

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IN DEVELOPMENT

  • The Complete Guide To Siemens TIA Portal

    The Complete Guide To Siemens TIA Portal

    Liam (Site Owner) Liam (Site Owner)

    Number of lessons: 39

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In this lesson, we introduce User Defined Types (UDTs) and explore their role in building scalable, maintainable PLC programs in TIA Portal.

UDTs act as blueprints for data, similar to how function blocks act as blueprints for logic. Instead of defining behavior, UDTs define structured data types that can include basic types like bool and real, as well as nested structures and even other UDTs. This allows you to build hierarchical and reusable data models that can grow with your project.

You’ll learn how to create a UDT within the PLC data types section and define variables in a table format, much like a data block. While many of the same properties are available, such as default values and HMI accessibility, UDTs cannot retain data themselves because they are templates and must be used within a data block or variable.

The lesson demonstrates how to instantiate a UDT inside a data block, showing that it produces a structured dataset identical to a manually created global DB, but with the key advantage of being centrally managed. When the UDT is updated, any associated data blocks can be synchronized using the update interface function, ensuring consistency across your project.

A major benefit of UDTs is highlighted when used with function blocks. By passing a single UDT variable into a function block interface, you can encapsulate large amounts of structured data cleanly. This keeps interfaces compact and makes future updates far easier. Instead of modifying multiple inputs, you can simply update the UDT and propagate those changes throughout the system.

The lesson also demonstrates how powerful UDTs become when scaling systems. For example, converting a structure into an array allows you to handle large sets of repeated data without expanding the function block interface beyond its limits. This is especially useful given the input limits on function blocks.

Finally, the lesson emphasizes the importance of UDTs in version control, library management, and modular design. While they may seem simple at first, UDTs are essential for building flexible and scalable automation systems, and they form a key part of professional TIA Portal development workflows.

#AlwaysLearning #Siemens #TIAPortal #Automation #PLC #HMI #TIA #DoAndGrow
The Complete Guide To TIA Portal V20 - Programming Basics - Structure With UDTs (User Defined Types)
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Latest Tip

Constants in a Function Block interface are fixed Constants in a Function Block interface are fixed values that cannot be changed at runtime. They are read-only by design.

This makes them ideal for fixed parameters such as scaling factors, limits, or configuration values that should never be altered by logic.

By placing constants in the interface, the intent of the calculation becomes explicit and protected from accidental writes.

Using constants correctly improves code readability and reduces the risk of unintended behavior during maintenance or expansion.

Watch more about this in The Complete Guide To TIA Portal V20 on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLO4iY9zqvY

#AlwaysLearning #Siemens #TIAPortal #Automation #PLC #HMI #DoAndGrow

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PLC Automation Consultancy & Training | Liam Bee

Learn PLC automation properly, through structured courses, deep technical guides, and industrial consultancy.

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