The Siemens Industry Automation Division has added new functions to the Step 7 Basic engineering system for the Simatic S7-1200 controller and the Simatic HMI Basic Panels. New features are the Chinese program interface, more commands for editing tables, a larger number of configurable variables for the Basic Panels and a converter for Simatic S7-200 projects to Simatic S7-1200.
With the Chinese program interface, Step 7 Basic now has six language versions along with German, English, French, Italian and Spanish which can be selected by a mouse click. The new FieldRead command enables reading from tables with a variable index and the FieldWrite command enables writing. Thus indirect addressing tasks can be easily implemented in the user program.
For HMI tasks the number of configurable internal and external variables for the Basic Panels has been increased: 250 variables for the KTP400 Basic mono PN and 500 variables for the KTP600 Basic mono PN, KTP600 Basic color PN, KTP1000 Basic color PN and TP1500 Basic color PN versions. The new converting tool enables the programs of Simatic S7-200 projects to be re-used in Simatic S7-1200 which means that Step 7 Micro/Win programs can be easily converted to Step 7 Basic. In the process, functions are automatically divided into individual program blocks. The comments and titles of the networks and the network numbers are retained. Nearly all the commands can be converted directly. Non-convertible codes are specially highlighted. The converter is available for downloading free of charge from the service and support pages of Simatic.
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